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Mark McKeeman
This is the woman beating thug who told a court his ex-partner deliberately ran into a lamp-post to get him into trouble.
Mark McKeeman, from Cambridge Park, Coleraine, had in fact head-butted his victim in a sickening attack.
He came up with the cock-and-bull story and took it all the way through his trial at Dungannon Magistrates Court this week.
The 36-year-old was contesting a charge of assaulting the woman as the pair made their way home from a night out in Cookstown on September 15 last year.
He further denied a raft of additional charges of assaulting police who came to the scene, and maintained the charges against him were fabricated.
Judge John Meehan described his story as “ludicrous” and lambasted him for “wasting public money” before finding him guilty on all counts.
And in a final blast at the thug Judge Meehan denied his application for legal aid to be extended to pay his barrister’s fees, stating the case was “not in the public interest.”
McKeeman’s former partner gave evidence of their night out drinking which had been uneventful until McKeeman launched a vicious and unprovoked attack.
She said he threw his takeaway food at her and followed this with a head-butt to the face, causing an injury to the bridge of her nose which was bleeding profusely.
Two males who were in the area had come to her aid.
This was denied outright by McKeeman who provided a completely contrary version of events.
Contending he could “recall the evening 100 per cent”, McKeeman insisted he had drunk no alcohol except for two shandies and insisted his ex-partner was intoxicated.
He said: “We were walking back to her house and she went clean off. She punched and slapped me about the head.
“I told her I couldn’t cope with her and I was walking away. Then she said ‘I’ll get you into f***ing trouble’ and stuck her head straight into a lamppost. The blood was pissing out of her.”
Police arrived and McKeeman was arrested. In custody he was said to be obstructive and confrontational, and assaulted several officers, which he denied.
He contended: “I was kept in cuffs the whole time so how could I assault anyone? On first seeing me the custody sergeant said, ‘Oh look, here’s the wife batterer’.
The police log showed he arrived in custody with a cut to his head which was bleeding but McKeeman denied this saying he sustained a serious head injury because police “shoved his face into the door frame of a cell.”
He said: “The way they moved me was what I call, beyond a joke. The custody sergeant likes to think he’s a bit of a hard man. He put me in a headlock but didn’t say that to anyone. He then banged my head against a door frame while calling me a wife batterer. He was hee-hawing and laughing about it.”
On being challenged why he made no reference in his statement to a lamppost causing an alleged self-inflicted injury to the victim he said, “That’s what happens when they don’t bother to write it down.”
The prosecution lawyer said: “So you make the case the victim is lying, the custody sergeant is lying, officers from the scene are lying and the doctor is lying. Everyone is lying but you.”
McKeeman retorted: “Police lie all the time anyway. They’ve been lying since I came here today.”
District Judge John Meehan said: “This is one of these cases which come up time after time, wasting public money, in which the outcome becomes blatantly obvious with every increasing ludicrous assertion.
“There is nothing to lend any tissue of credibility to anything he has to say.”
Pre-sentence reports were ordered and McKeeman to return to court on June 25.