Daniel came to our s39 assault solicitors needing help. He had been charged with s.39 assault against his wife.
Daniel had been suffering for a long time in a volatile marriage with his wife, Ruth.
Ruth was not a nasty person, but she did suffer from a number of mental illnesses, which made her quite a difficult person to live with.
Ruth and Daniel have a 5-year-old daughter, Rosie, together who has been exposed to this volatile relationship.
On the date of the offence Daniel received a call from Ruth’s Mum, Mary. Ruth was shouting at Mary for various reasons and Mary wanted Daniel to contact the GP to see if they could do anything to calm her down.
Daniel went home immediately to try and resolve the situation. When Daniel arrived Ruth started shouting at him and was getting increasingly more hostile. Daniel tried to calm Ruth down but ended up getting frustrated and started shouting back at Ruth.
During this encounter Daniel noticed that their daughter, Rosie, was standing in the kitchen watching the whole thing take place with her hands over her ears. This completely snapped Daniel out of what was happening between him and his wife. He put his hand up to stop Ruth from lunging forward at him. Daniel’s aim was for his hand to connect with the top of Ruth’s chest and put a stop to the incident, however because of the height difference he ended up connecting with the base of her throat.
Ruth stopped and rang the police alleging that Daniel had tried to strangle her.
This clearly was not the truth.
Daniel came to us and our s39 assault solicitors advised that he pleaded Not Guilty to this charge.
The aim of our case preparation was to try and convince the court that Daniel’s version of events was the truth, and that there was no intention to try and harm Ruth in any way.
Our case was strongly supported by the fact that Ruth never gave a statement to the Police as once she had calmed down, she did not want to support the prosecution case at all.
With Ruth’s permission we requested her medical records to show that she was clearly a woman who had problems and needed help, and had always had her husband there to support her.
We then went on to obtain a full witness statement from Mary so that she could explain how Ruth has struggled with these problems, and how they affected her family life.
Daniel was then prepared by one of our specialist criminal barristers from our Premier London Chambers to give live evidence. He was guided about what was likely to happen in cross examination and also how to approach the court so that his account would come across as the truth.
The day of the trial came and Daniel attended with his barrister, Frida Hussain. The prosecution opened and put forward their case, including playing the recording of the 999 call. This call supported our case even further, it showed Ruth as being very erratic and Daniel as being very calm and actually inviting the Police around to try and calm the situation down.
We then put forward our case with Daniel giving live evidence, and Frida gave her closing speech focusing on how hard it was to live with a person with a mental illness.
The Magistrates retired to consider their verdict and returned a verdict of Not Guilty.
Daniel was over the moon!
We are now working with Daniel to claim back a proportion of his legal fees from the National Taxing Team, and Daniel is working on moving on to the next chapter of his life, and building a stable home environment for Rosie.
If you are charged with, or investigated for, an offence like this, our specialist s39 assault solicitors can help. Call us now on 01623 600645.
