An abusive Co Armagh thug who held a knife to the face of his former partner and threatened to kill her as he tried to strangle her was handed a 39-month sentence on Friday.
Ordering Reese Geraghty to serve 18 months in prison and 21 months under supervised licence, Judge Patrick Lynch KC said there were multiple aggravating features in the case, including his record for violence, and that it was domestic abuse, committed in the victim’s own home “where she should feel most safe”.
At an earlier hearing the 23-year-old, from Avondale Manor in Craigavon, had entered guilty pleas to making a threat to kill, causing actual bodily harm, possessing a weapon with intent to cause ABH, criminal damage and three counts of common assault on dates from October 2-5 last year.
Opening the facts at Craigavon Crown Court, prosecuting lawyer Joseph Murphy outlined how Geraghty and his victim had split a few weeks before the incident but he turned up at her home, uninvited, at around 10.30pm on October 3.
She let him in on the understanding that with their baby daughter asleep upstairs, he would not shout and wouldn’t wake the seven-month-old, but he began an argument as to “why they were not together”.
“She ignored him, but he came up close to her, spitting in her face and he threw a lighter and an aerosol [can] against a painting on the wall,” said the lawyer, adding that she asked him to leave at that point.
Outside, Geraghty “kicked over a dog bin” and tried to kick the dog as well but once back inside the kitchen of the property, “he retrieved a knife from the drawer and held it to her neck”.
“The victim blocked that with her hands, but he threatened to cut her hands off and he pressed the knife against the left side of her abdomen causing a mark,” said Mr Murphy.
Geraghty “put the knife against her back, cutting the side of her dressing gown in the process” before he “dragged her to the ground and stood on her legs causing pain”.
“While she was on the ground, he threw a chair at her and tried to squash her legs with it”, but she was able to move herself into the living room to get away from Geraghty, however he followed her in and “grabbed her by the leg and dragged her on to the floor”, the prosecuting lawyer added.
The court heard that with one hand around her throat and trying to squeeze: “She asked him if he was going to kill her and he replied, ‘Do you want me to kill you?’ but she put her head down to stop him cutting off her windpipe.
“She felt that he was trying to kill her,” said Mr Murphy, adding that when Geraghty went to the front door to check that it was locked, he saw the police outside and, after warning her “not to say anything”, he fled out the back door but was arrested a short distance away.
When he was stopped by police, he told officers to “f*** off” but he was found to have his victim’s mobile phone and forensic examination of the knife uncovered his DNA on it.
Mr Murphy submitted there was a “litany of aggravating features” to the case including that he used a weapon, had strangled his victim, was intoxicated and the fact that of his 25 previous convictions “most of them are for violence, public order and drugs”.
He revealed that amongst the previous offences was a wounding where Geraghty had stabbed a man with a screwdriver at a house party and disorderly behaviour where the defendant and his victim had been involved in a street fight.
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