Leeds thug jailed for strangling girlfriend with mobile phone cable

It was heard at Leeds Crown Court that the 25-year-old kicked, punched, dragged the woman by her hair and throttled her four times – once to the point that she lost consciousness.

Her young child in the property at the time, and it was only after the woman fled and raised the alarm with neighbours that Louis Speak left.

Speak, from Headingley, admitted charges of actual bodily harm and intentional strangulation.

Prosecutor Geraldine Kelly said that Speak and the woman had been in an on/off relationship since 2020, which deteriorated when she was diagnosed with a life-changing illness, saying he would become abusive and possessive.

At around 8.30pm on July 29, he finished work and went to her home.

After she told him her ex partner, and the father to her child, did not want Speak near the youngster because of his aggression, Speak turned violent.

He first grabbed her and dragged her to the floor and punched her 10 times, before sitting on her and putting his hands around her throat.

Able to get free, the pair grappled over her mobile phone before he punched her a further 20 times.

He then grabbed the mobile phone cable and wrapped it around her neck and pulled it, telling her he was going to kill her, but luckily she able to get her fingers between the cable and her neck.

Speak then wrapped the cable around his own neck and the bedroom door handle and threatened to choke himself.

Fleeing the bedroom, she ran into the bathroom but he was able to force open the door and tried to hit her with a mirror that had fallen from the wall.

After smashing his phone against the wall and blaming her, he then tried to strangle her again from behind, pushing her face down, before dragging her down the stairs and strangled her for a final time in the kitchen until she blacked out.

Despite appearing to have a fit and frothing at the mouth, he continued to shout abuse at her when she came round with threats to kill her, while kicking and punching her again.

Even after she fled to the neighbour’s house, Speak continued shouting, telling her to kill herself.

He was arrested at his home on Cardigan Road two day later and during interview with police admitted they got into an argument, but said she assaulted him and denied that he strangled her.

Mitigating, Caroline Abraham said that Speak, who has no previous convictions, “fully acknowledged that is crossed the custody threshold” and was “motivated and willing” to work with probation if a custodial sentence could be avoided.

It was heard that Speak expressed remorse, while letters submitted to the court in his support said the behaviour was “out of character”.

Despite this, Judge Simon Phillips KC handed Speak 26 months behind bars, along with an indefinite-length restraining order to keep him away from the victim.

He told him: “It was a prolonged and sustained incident.

"It was in a domestic context, it was her home and her child was in the house.”