A SELF-CONFESSED ‘woman-beater’ who subjected his police officer girlfriend to a campaign of manipulative and demeaning bullying has escaped being jailed.
Damien Parriss of Ulverston Green had pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to a charge of putting a person in fear by harassment.
Despite the ordeal to which he subjected his girlfriend Johanne Short, he was given a two-year prison sentence suspended for two years.
Judge Anthony Potter ordered him to undertake a Building Better Relationships programme, to take part in a rehabilitation activity and to do 200 hours of unpaid work.
Prosecutor Lee Marklew said PC Short met Parriss in June 2016 and they moved in together at her home in Worcester in November of that year.
“At the start they got on well, but the relationship soon became turbulent. He was jealous and started to constantly look at her messages and would become paranoid at the slightest thing,” Mr Marklew said.
The court heard Parriss was fixated with thoughts she was seeing anyone she had any contact with on social media and would explode into a rage before calming down and acting as if nothing had happened.
During the course of their relationship, which ended in July last year, he assaulted Ms Short on three occasions and twice made threats to her after she ended the relationship, the court heard.
The first assault took place just after he had moved in with her, when he deliberately bumped into her during an argument. When she then asked him to leave, he pushed her against a wardrobe where she hit her face, injuring her jaw.
He then left, after which he sent her a number of messages saying he was disgusted with his behaviour and, as a police officer, she should report him, but then suggested she had driven him to it.
Just before Christmas he persuaded Ms Short to act as the guarantor for a loan, only to later threaten he would not pay it off, leaving her to have to cover it.
She believed he would pay it off when he got a tax rebate in March, but instead he used the money to book a holiday – only to then start demanding £1,500 from her for her half.
As he became increasingly angry, he threatened to rip up her passport, knocked her against a wall and snatched her phone from her, injuring her hand.
When she told him at the beginning of July the relationship was over, he threw her phone at her – breaking the screen – and threatened to stamp on her work phone.
Three days later he turned up at her home and, when she refused to let him in, he threatened to kill her and slit her throat and to kill any man who went there.
Despite that he persuaded her to take the holiday to the Dominican Republic with him because they had spent so much on it, but things were strained while they were away because she would not sleep with him.
After their return, he sent her a series of threatening messages in which he said that if he saw her with another man he would ‘beat the two of you black and blue’ and make her life hell.
“It is clear he had really lost control of himself and after two hours of text messages she said she would report him to the police, which she did,” said Mr Marklew.
But he then turned up outside her home, threatening; “If you ain’t having me, you ain’t having anyone.”
He made off as the police arrived, but was arrested nearby.
In a statement, Ms Short said Parriss’ ‘controlling and coercive behaviour’ had affected her deeply, as well as causing her ‘professional embarrassment’ as a serving police officer.
Sentencing Parriss, Judge Potter also made him subject to a restraining order banning him from having any contact with Ms Short or going to the street where she lives or the gym she uses for 15 years.
“You ‘ironically’ called yourself a woman-beater. There is no irony in it, because that’s exactly how you behaved.
“You have caused her ongoing pain and worry and you did that in a quite deliberate and manipulating way,” he said.
“Your behaviour was quite disgraceful but I take the view the public is better protected by giving you the opportunity to go on a programme designed to build better relationships.”
