Man who punched wife spared jail

Friday 24 February 2017

A man who punched his wife after a day of drinking at a friend’s house has escaped a prison or community-based sentence.

48-year-old Graeme Dalziel was accused of assaulting his wife on 7 November last year. He pled guilty to the charges.

The pair, who had been together for around nine years, had been visiting a friend’s house for drinks, staying there during the day and into the night.

After consuming “a significant amount of alcohol” and becoming “heavily intoxicated”, the couple became embroiled in an argument.

Dalziel displayed, “…fluctuating mood swings culminating in threatening behaviour.” He subsequently punched his wife in the right eye.

While described as, “…quite a hard punch”, the assault did not result in a visible injury, but did result in the victim’s eye watering.

She withdrew her complaint the following day, but the Police continued with prosecution after a statement was obtained from a witness who had not been drinking at the time.

During the case, the Court heard that the couple’s relationship had been particularly “volatile”.

It also transpired that Dalziel had previous alcohol-related convictions, including counts of theft from shops.

But attention was drawn to his recent efforts to address his alcoholism. “Mr Dalziel is a recovered alcoholic, but since the incident last year, he has addressed these problems in a very robust fashion,” the Court was told.

Magistrate Bridget Shaw maintained that, “The Court rightly treats domestic violence incidents very seriously”, but noted the mitigation available to Dalziel – namely, his guilty plea, “enormous progress” and health conditions that would make a prison or community sentence more difficult.

The Defence subsequently recommended a single probation order, stating that Dalziel had, “…accepted culpability for a single blow, and no one is suggesting that there was not provocation on the night.”

He was ultimately handed a single probation order by Magistrate Shaw. She said: “I’m just going to give you the probation today because I think for someone drinking as much as you have for as long as you have, you’ve started to turn your life around.”

But detoxification is, “not a line on a graph… it goes up and down and sometimes back,” she added.

“[You have] made substantial progress, and you are to be congratulated and encouraged in that.”