BY LUCY CAULKETT
Domestic violence is not an unfamiliar story in the world, and will more than likely be revisited again and again.
This time, the assailant was a woman, although she had persistently reported her partner for domestic violence but he somehow always escaped punishment. by the law. Tanya Byrne, 36, of Fordwych Road, made 19 separate complaints about Lee Tyler over a ten month period, but after police arrest and investigations, he always always released with ‘no further action.’
The woman herself was sometimes responsible for her partners escape from the hands of the law because she sometimes would retract her initial complaint by claiming she sustained her injuries through some other means besides violence. On one occasion she claimed her injuries came from dancing. How laughable! Between the time of arrest and a court hearing, several partners bow to pressure from their partners and change their story. Sometimes out of fear, other times out of regret or so called ‘forgiveness’ or ‘love’.
This is of course stupid, because one can never know when the fatal attack will come. We have all heard of people killing their spouse on various occasions over the years, yet there are still stupid individuals who believe it won’t happen again. The reality is that if it can happen once, it can happen again. And if it can happen twice, it can certainly happen a third and fourth time, and eventually end up with death and a murder case. It doesn’t matter how much the partner cannot imagine it will go this far, it can- and it will never be the first, second, or last. Relationships characterised by domestic violence are incredibly dangerous and should raise serious alarm bells for all who know people living such lives. The worse case scenario may never happen but it can always happen.
LOVE
Byrne told Southwark Crown Court that she always forgave her husband because she loved him.
But she finally had enough and lost her cool after one row at their home in July last year, stabbing Mr Tyler in the stomach so hard that his intestines were bulging out of his stomach by the time emergency services arrived.
Byrne was charged with attempted murder, but the prosecution accepted her guilty plea to the lesser charge of unlawful wounding after Mr Tyler refused to come to court to give evidence. He was obviously repaying her ‘good deed’ of not seeing her previous allegations through to the end. This is a typical example of a dangerous relationship waiting for disaster to happen.
Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith, presiding over the case, decided not to send her to jail after describing the attack as ‘excessive self defence.’ The judge attributed the attack to alcohol
He remarked the turbulent relationship between Byrne and Mr Tyler was ‘not uncommon’ and on alcohol and ordered her not to have any contact with Mr Tyler.
Instructing her, she said “If he turns up in your life you walk away and if you do not you are in breach of this order and you are back in front of me.’
She added: ‘It was a single blow – there is obvious remorse. It was excessive self-defence.’ It probably was self defence, but to substitute the word stab for blow is farcical and serves little deterrence to others in similar situations. Reality is that as a woman herself, she probably was sympathetic to the past incidences of violence Bryan had been subjected to, but this does not justify her actions. She should not be in a dangerous relationship, simple!
OBSERVER
As a female observer myself, I was not repelled by the judgement because too many men subject their partners to an inexcusable and unwarranted amount of violence. However, this deal between these two weird lovers, is harmful for them both. It will not surprise me if they discretely try and see each other because many violent relationships are often mark with the poisonous addiction of sex, mutual interest of alcohol or drugs, and sometimes money too. The eye of media will keep tabs on these two via a secret contact, and will not hesitate to report them to the courts if they revive their relationship after this final hearing. We have been watching them for the past two months, though they have sometimes evaded our observation, but we will not give up.
Byrne will return to court to give a progress report to the judge on April 11. She was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment suspended for two years.
