An abusive boyfriend who threatened to bury his girlfriend alive during a six-year catalogue of abuse had been spared prison.
Matthew Clark, now 28, was a teenager when he violently attacked his ex-partner on numerous occasions.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard multiple examples of violent assaults spanning from January 2013, just one year after the schoolmates began their relationship, up to March 2019, when it came to a traumatic end.
Fiscal depute Carol Gammie told the court of one incident at the start of 2014 when Clark lashed out after catching the woman texting another man.
“The accused started shouting, packed her stuff and told her to leave,” she said.
“At one stage, the complainer was standing on the stairs and the accused pushed her the rest of the way down. She managed to grab a railing and just ended up stumbling.
“But when reaching the bottom of the stairs, the accused pinned her against the door and punched the wall. She then ended up outside the house in the front garden and the accused started throwing shoes at her.
“A stiletto heel struck her on the head and her head was bleeding as a result.”
Clark’s assault didn’t stop there.
Victim ‘pleaded with bystanders for help’
He then grabbed and pulled at her clothes so hard that her top was completely torn off, leaving her only in her bra.
“The complainer picked up a coat from the ground, put it on and went to a bus stop nearby,” the fiscal continued. “He followed her to the bus stop and took her phone from her.
“He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her by it down Provost Rust Drive and down a lane near Northfield Academy.
“She was begging him to stop and recalls pleading with bystanders to help.
“Once in the field next to Northfield Academy, the accused threatened to ‘bury her alive’ and that ‘nobody would find her’ before dragging her through a car park towards his mother’s house.
Threw her over a wall
“When they got near to the front garden the complainer tried to run but he caught up with her, picked her up and threw her over the neighbour’s garden wall.
“He then started dragging her by her clothes into his mum’s back garden and through the back door of the property. After they entered the property, the accused started to apologise.”
Not long after this incident, Clark’s victim fell pregnant with his child and the abuse stopped.
However, two years later, in June 2016, his behaviour started to deteriorate again.
And in November of that year, he turned violent when she received a text from a male friend and went on to “grab her by the hair and drag her up the stairs”.
When Clark’s victim ended the relationship in early 2018, she told him she didn’t want to be with him anymore and had been out with another man.
On that occasion, he placed two hands on her neck and squeezed while screaming at her.
As she begged for him to stop he eventually took one hand off her neck to steady himself but kept her restrained on the bed with the other.
Clark then “suddenly stopped shouting and started to cry” before asking the woman to “fix things” and promising to change.
Their relationship ended a few months later.
A host of appalling incidents
The court also heard of earlier instances of abuse.
In 2013, Clark threw an open-bladed Stanley knife at the woman, narrowly missing her leg and lodging it in the wall behind.
A month later, after an argument, Clark flung a half-full bottle of vodka at her, again narrowly missing her.
In May 2013, a further argument saw Clark drag the woman by her hair into her bedroom before pushing her onto the bed and using his free hand to repeatedly punch holes in the wall above her head while he called her a “whore”.
The dad-of-three admitted charges of domestic assault to injury and threatening or abusive behaviour at a trial diet.
His defence advocate David Moggach said Clark had “matured” in the decade since this offending and is now in a stable relationship with the mother of his two other children.
‘Has has matured’
“At the time Mr Clark was certainly immature and he struggled with the responsibility of the relationship,” he said.
“The problems he experienced in life, he rather naively, turned to alcohol and drugs to get through. But he has matured and is now a different man who no longer needs alcohol or cocaine.
“This behaviour is something Mr Clark should not be proud of and he is not proud of it.”
Clark, a delivery driver, has already completed a domestic abuse course following a previous incident, the court was told.
Sheriff Ian Wallace told him: “This is a serious course of offending and ordinarily, given your record and the nature of the offending, this is a matter which would attract a custodial sentence.
“However I take into account these incidents took place when you were young, approximately 10 years ago, when you were a teenager.
“And I accept you have made progress since then and matured.
“Nevertheless, your actions had a lasting impact on your victim and you require to be punished for that.”
He handed Clark, of Harcourt Road, Aberdeen, 250 hours of unpaid work, a 160-day curfew, and an 18-month supervision order as a direct alternative to custody.
He also issued a non-harassment order, which keeps Clark away from his victim for 10 years.
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