Jealous East Cleveland brute jailed for strangling partner

John Mowbray grabbed the woman by the throat after they returned from the pub and he started accusing her of cheating on him when she hadn’t updated her Facebook profile.

The jealous thug left the woman gasping for breath as he squeezed his hands around her throat, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Uzma Khan, prosecuting, said the attack happened while the woman’s children were upstairs in her east Cleveland home on May 7 this year.

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“He was screaming and shouting at her,” she said. “He shoves causing her to fall and then grabs her throat calling her a ‘****’.

“He continues to squeeze until she is unable to breathe. He does eventually let go of her.

“She believed that he intended to kill her, he was squeezing as hard as he could and she was gasping for breath and feeling helpless.”

In a victim impact statement, the woman said the attack had left her in agony and fearing for her life.

She added: “I believe John intended to kill me – I was pinned against the wall and he was strangling me.”

John Mowbray (Image: Cleveland Police)

Mowbray, of Wharton Hall, Green Road, Skelton, east Cleveland, pleaded guilty to a charge of intentional strangulation.

Andrew Turton, mitigating, said his client accepted he had been drinking at time of the attack and it was a temporary loss of his sensibilities.

He added: “The defendant maintains that the action was played out in sex play but accepts on this occasion it was not consensual.”

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Judge Stephen Ashurst sentenced the 55-year-old to 12-months in custody for the terrifying attack on his now former partner.

“You have expressed love for her but due to your jealousy accusing her, wrongly as it turns out, of seeing other men,” he said.

“The element of this offence which makes it most serious, is that she thought her days were numbered, she thought she was going to die and that is an awful ordeal to put someone, particularly someone who in the past have professed to love and respect.”

Mowbray was also made subject to an indefinite restraining order to protect the woman.