A knife-wielding girlfriend who was thrown out of her lover’s bedroom naked at 4am after a row over space in the bed has been ordered to pay him £100 compensation for damaging his door.
Naomi Pickwick, 32, was arrested after she used two kitchen knives to hammer on her boyfriend Dominic Barbour’s bedroom door as she stood outside with no clothes in the communal hallway of his house.
Police were called to the property in Warrington, Cheshire, after Mr Barbour, a restaurant head chef, unlocked the door to let Pickwick back in – only to accidentally injure himself when he tried to grab the bread knives from her.
She managed to throw on some clothing before fleeing but was arrested as she ran barefoot back to her house.
Naomi Pickwick, 32, was ordered to pay £100 compensation to boyfriend Dominic Barbour after she damaged his bedroom door with two kitchen knives
The violent bust up with Dominic Barbour (pictured) happened on October 22 last year after the couple, who had been in a relationship for 20 months, had been drinking gin and tonics at home
Miss Pickwick, from Warrington, Cheshire, later claimed she would often be woken up by her boyfriend as he rolled on her with his arms and body during the night.
At Warrington magistrates’ court Miss Pickwick was convicted of criminal damage to the door following a trial and she was also ordered to pay £200 costs.
A judge accused Barbour of being ‘abusive’ but said Pickwick had ‘played her part’ too.
The violent bust up occurred on October 22 last year after the couple, who had been in a relationship for 20 months, had been drinking gin and tonics at home.
Miss Pickwick pictured outside Warrington Magistrates’ Court, Cheshire
Mr Barbour told the hearing: ‘We watched some TV and then went to bed but Naomi was not happy with the amount of space I was taking.
‘It was about 4am.. She was arguing, saying I had too much of the bed.
‘After that, I was kicked, I was pushed, shouted at, sworn at and had my hair pulled.
‘I attempted to escort her out of the room. It is a shared house and there are eight other tenants.
‘She was not clothed but I put her out of the room because she was being aggressive and I locked the door.
‘I had no idea what she would do but I did not want someone aggressive in my bedroom.’
He said he heard a ‘very loud banging’ on his door and saw Miss Pickwick standing there with ‘two bread knives in her hands’.
Mr Barbour pictured outside Warrington Magistrates’ Court, Cheshire,
Mr Barbour added: ‘Her arms were raised up and the knives were in her hand and there were lots of dints on the door.
‘I tried to take the knives off her and then I rang the police. Naomi was not very happy about that and started pulling my hair, smacking me, and ripped my T-shirt.
‘She then got her clothes and fled from the scene. She also grabbed the TV with both hands as she was leaving the room and threw it to the floor.’
He said: ‘There was always an issue about who takes up more of the bed. I never struck her. The only thing I did was to throw her out of the room.
‘I was just hoping that she would go away and that’s why I locked the door. I just thought that she should go.’
Miss Pickwick said in her evidence she would often be woken up by Mr Barbour as he rolled on her with his arms and body during the night and said he had also woken her on the night of the incident.
She told the court: ‘I told him before: ‘Be careful when you are in bed, you are squashing me in bed. That night we were watching a horror film before we went to sleep.
‘But he woke me up because he had been rolling around. I said ‘Stop it’ and went back to asleep and he woke me up.
‘I said “What are you doing?” and he started going mad at me.’ He was shaking me. He said something like “You are taking the piss”.
‘The TV was still on. I was pretty confused. We were not really arguing. It was physical, he was trying to get me out of bed.
‘That is when the TV got damaged. He continued to try and drag me out of the room so I grabbed the wardrobe door. That was the only thing between me and getting thrown out of the room.’
She said Mr Barbour gets ‘rage type anger’ and he dragged and threw her out of the bedroom.
Miss Pickwick added: ‘He must have grabbed me around the waist because my arms were on the wardrobe. He was dragging and pulling me. I pinged off the wardrobe and he picked me up and threw me out.’
She said that was ‘upset, surprised and shocked’ to find herself on the landing but had no memory of going to the kitchen to get the knives.
When asked why she had the knives, she said: ‘I wanted to go back into the room to get my belongings. I was not sure what he would do next. It was not to attack him, it was to deter him. I wanted to get my stuff and go.
‘I remember him acting quite calm when I went back to the room. I got my clothes and went. I only got a little bit of clothing, just a T- shirt and pants. I didn’t get my shoes. I did not want us to argue or anything else but then he rang the police.
‘It is a 15 minute walk to my house. I was barefoot. Police were already there when I got there. I never got to my front door.’
Pickwick had previous convictions for assault on police and assault against her mother.
She was convicted of damage to the door but cleared of assault and damaging the TV.
District Judge Jack McGarva told her: ‘This is a very unusual case. Dominic Barbour has given evidence that he put you outside onto the communal landing of the house which would have been full of men – it is reasonable to expect there were men living there.
‘You were thrown out naked in the middle of the night. That is quite an abusive thing for anyone to do and he has got no real explanation for that.
‘He had not even thought about it, which shows something about his state of mind during this incident.’
He added: ‘You are very much at risk of being locked up because you have problems with domestic relationships when you are drunk and problems when you are angry. Something has got to change.
‘But you are a relatively young woman and you are likely to have other relationships in your life. This was an exceptional incident by any stretch of the imagination.
‘You were turfed out of the room onto the landing in a communal house and as a human being I have to feel some empathy with you.
‘It does not justify you getting really drunk and picking up the knives but I am human and because of the circumstances of this incident, being turfed out onto the landing naked, I think there’s a realistic chance of you being rehabilitated.
‘He has his part to play as well but I think you should. I do not think anyone has covered themselves in glory in this.
‘It’s unthinkable to do this to a young lady. In all, it is a horrible incident – a very good advert against drinking.’
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
