Domestic abuser choked teenager and burnt her hair

A judge said Ryan Black was a "nasty" abuser

A man who choked his teenage girlfriend until she was unconscious and burned her hair during a "nasty" campaign of domestic abuse has been jailed for more than four years.

Ryan Black, 40, subjected his 18-year-old partner to regular attacks and controlled her bank card, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

The woman said she was having to find herself again after Black "stripped" everything away.

Black, of Farne Terrace in Walker, Newcastle, had denied any wrongdoing but was found guilty of coercive control and intentional strangulation.

Black and the young woman began a relationship in August 2022 which started well but deteriorated whenever he drank alcohol, prosecutor Sam Faulks said.

He regularly physically and verbally attacked her and when she tried to leave he took her phone and bank card from her, the court heard.

Examples of the "common" violence included him picking her up and slamming her to the ground at a bus stop on one occasion and biting her face on another.

He also regularly used her bank card, the court was told.

'Anxious and frightened'

In January 2023 he strangled her until she passed out, Mr Faulks said.

When she woke she found him crying and saying he could have killed her so she had to comfort him, the court heard, which was a regular occurrence after his attacks.

He strangled her again in July 2024 when she had the "temerity to bring up his behaviour towards her", Mr Faulks said.

The relationship finally ended when he singed her hair while trying to set it alight with a cigarette lighter, but even then, when she was on a bus fleeing from him, he threatened to kill her family and burn her house down.

In a statement, the woman said she had been severely impacted by the abuse and was still seeking medical help and counselling.

She said she had lived on "eggshells" around Black and was always "anxious and frightened" of what he might do.

The woman said she was "finding it hard to find" herself again having been "stripped away" by Black.

Judge Robert Spragg said Black was "nasty" towards the significantly younger woman and posed a high risk to future partners.

He was jailed for four years for his abuse and a further four months for breaching a suspended prison sentence imposed for other offending.

A restraining order banning him from contacting her was also made to last indefinitely.