A 32-year old Latvian MMA fighter has been jailed for five and a half years after pleading guilty to multiple offences regarding the abuse of his former partner. Dundalk Circuit Court in Ireland and Judge Dara Hayes sentenced the unnamed individual after hearing how he continuously committed violent and threatening acts before being handed an imposed sentence of six years in total which will be backdated to January of 2023.
The man had no previous convictions to his name but his actions certainly became increasingly serious over a short period of time with his partner blaming his temperament on his weight cut for an upcoming fight at one stage. In total, he plead guilty to serious assault, coercive control, criminal damage, theft and animal cruelty.
One of the first instances came from when he kicked his partner’s dog across the room after it urinated on the floor and when his partner looked to protect the dog, he kicked her hand which broke a finger on her left hand. This appears to be the start of a downward spiral that only gets more violent from this point.
He later physically assaulted the woman by choking her and kicking her before doing the same less than two weeks later, punching her arms and legs in her own apartment. Several weeks after that, he attempted to stab his former partner with a wife only to break her car keys in half, steal her phone and punch her in the face just three days later when the women met him in a public car park to try and give him back some of his possessions.
Once again, the violence and control continued from this point on after the woman let the man back into her life after she fell pregnant. The man physically and verbally abused her and when the victim suffered a miscarriage, the case was investigated under a breach of a safety order where Irish gardaí found the man attempting to hide under the victim’s bed.
He was released on bail only to break into her apartment where he allegedly told the victim “I can kill you now and the guards cannot protect you”. The defendant claimed that after serving his sentence and being released from prison, he intends on returning to his home country of Latvia.
