South Tyneside offshore worker assaulted partner during row slapped with massive fine
A South Tyneside offshore worker who assaulted his partner by pushing her during a row has been ordered to pay a whopping £4,150 in fines and costs.
Michael Robson’s £4,500 monthly take home pay was sized up by a judge who imposed his giant punishment at the borough’s magistrates’ court. Robson, 35, of Salcombe Avenue, Jarrow, shoved the woman at her home while grabbing his belongings at 10.30pm on Sunday, April 28 last year.
He denied the assault by beating allegation but was convicted when he failed to attend his trial on Wednesday, November 27. A warrant was issued for his arrest due to his no show, but he was not located by police for exactly 10 months.
On Monday, September 29, he appeared in the dock to be sentenced for the assault and to plead guilty to a charge of failing to surrender to custody. Of the attack, prosecutor Rehana Haque said: “The victim says, in a statement in April 2024, that she had been with the defendant for four years, since 2020.
“She describes the relationship as being toxic and that he was jealous. At 10.30pm, she was alone when he began banging on the front door. She thought that he was going to smash the window in the door, due to how hard he was punching on it. He looked extremely angry.
“She went to the front door and opened it, and he stepped inside. He pushed her chest with a hand. He collected some clothes and a TV that belonged to him and called her a slag and scruffy. She said he left her anxious and made her feel unsafe. She added, ‘I wouldn’t put it past him to do it again’.”
Robson’s victim initially wanted the court to impose a restraining order against him. However, his latest hearing was told that was no longer the case and the pair had reconciled. Alastair Naismith, defending, told District Judge Zoe Passfield: “It’s a bit of an odd case. You can see the warrant has been outstanding for some time.
“He thought the trial had been adjourned, he thought that it had finished. The victim was at the trial, he wasn’t. He’s not gone away, he’s not hidden, it’s just taken the police almost a year to execute the warrant. He accepts that he hasn’t attended the trial.
“It was his mistake rather than an error by anybody else. I don’t think there are grounds to reopen the case. He may appeal in due course, he hasn’t decided yet. It was a domestic case. She did want a restraining order. It could be that when the police have gone to find him, he’s been living at a different address.”
Judge Passfield said there had been no further allegations of criminality against Robson in the past year. For the assault, she fined him £2,500 and ordered him to pay a £1,000 victim surcharge and £650 court costs. She imposed no separate penalty for the charge of failing to surrender.