A serial domestic abuser has been jailed for breaching a restraining order and battering his ex-partner in a jealous rage. Builder Lee Hevingham, 41, from Longsight, attacked his ex-girlfriend Charlotte Bridgeman, striking her on the forehead with a mobile phone before repeatedly punching her in the face.
Ms Bridgeman had endured a decade-long, "horrible" on-off relationship with the "controlling" and volatile Hevingham, Manchester Crown Court heard. The mother of his two children was regularly subjected to "physical abuse" before their bitter separation in 2021, when a restraining order was imposed to protect her.
Attack after pub meeting
Despite the order, the former couple met at a pub in Longsight on November 15 last year. Their alcohol-fuelled reunion ended in violence.
Following a "heated argument" in which Hevingham called his former partner a "slag", Ms Bridgeman left the pub at around 9.30pm and headed towards his home, prosecutor Thomas Sherrington told the court, reports the Manchester Evening News.
He punched the windscreen of her car, causing it to smash, before "name calling" took place between the two. Ms Bridgeman parked the car further up the road but Hevingham pursued her and slapped her in the head, the prosecutor said.
Victim's terror
She called her daughter and sister but the defendant grabbed her phone from her hand and "smashed it" into her forehead causing it to bleed, the court was told. Hevingham continued to punch his ex in the face and body, leaving her with severe facial bruising and bruising to her arm. She also reported that she had lost consciousness after he allegedly put his hands around her neck.
Ms Bridgeman went to hospital three days later. She would have attended earlier "but for the embarrassment" of how she looked and to look after her children, according to Mr Sherringham. She underwent a scan and was referred to an ear, nose and throat specialist before being discharged "with concussion management". She is said to be awaiting confirmation of her belief that she suffered a fractured nose and eye socket.
In a victim personal statement read out in court, Ms Bridgeman said: "I'm scared Lee is going to kill me. He's ruined my life. I get to the stage where I'm free of him and he comes back and I fall back into my shell."
The attack had had a "devastating and life-long impact on me and my children", she said, going on to say that leaving him was "not as simple as people think".
She believed she was "going to die" and the attack had "changed my life forever", she said. "The terror I felt in this moment has never left me. I believed they were the last moments of my life."
Ms Bridgeman said she was reminded of the attack "every time I look in the mirror" while the "emotional scars are even deeper than the physical scars". She said she suffers nightmares, flashbacks and had been diagnosed with complex PTSD partly as a result of the attack but also because of other trauma in her life. Her ability to trust people had been "destroyed", leaving her unwilling to go out. "I'm frightened to even look at another man", she said.
She added: "I no longer recognise the woman I used to be. Now my life revolves around surviving trauma, taking medication and protecting my children from what they have already endured...No sentence can remove what has happened."
Criminal history and sentencing
The court heard about Hevingham's long criminal history with 31 sets of previous convictions for 63 crimes, including 10 acts of vandalism, nine of battery and four breaches of "protective orders" designed to protect one other former partner and family members. He was handed a 15-month prison sentence for an assault in 2023. He had a "history of domestic violence", said the prosecutor.
Megan Horner, defending, said her client's relationship with Ms Bridgeman "can only be described as turbulent" and both had "drunk a lot" at the pub and there was "anger on both sides" after the pair rowed about "infidelity". She alleged the incident had been "engineered" by Ms Bridgeman. Her client had breached the restraining order by meeting up and had made no effort to confirm her claim it had been rescinded, the court was told.
The judge, Recorder Mark Rhind KC, said Hevingham's previous convictions suggested a man who "abuses partners" and an "entrenched pattern of violence". His record indicated "14 years of issues with domestic violence by you upon partners and family".
"It's completely clear to me that you cannot control your temper and you cannot hold your drink," he said. He went on to say that the fact Ms Bridgeman appeared to have wanted to meet him on November 15 was "no mitigation whatsoever" and the responsibility to avoid contact forbidden by the restraining order "is on you and not on her".
"You should have made more effort to ensure what she said about it being lifted was right", said Recorder Rhind, adding: "Once again you fell into a violent and jealous rage with her." Recorder Rhind told Hevingham "you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself".
"In drink there's arguments and name-calling. That's a completely normal thing to happen in a relationship. It's something adults and mature people should be able to deal with.... This is serious domestic violence against a background of domestic violence and breaches of orders."
Hevingham, of Portland Crescent in Longsight, was handed a prison sentence of three years and six months after he admitted breaching a restraining order, two counts of criminal damage and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
