A man attacked his sister with a knife and bit her on the face and body after an argument about who should cook the Sunday roast.
Damian Hunter, 39, a former Malton factory worker, flew into a rage and pinned his sister to the floor, biting her on the cheek and back, before threatening to stab her with a six-inch knife.
The court heard that Hunter, who has psychiatric issues, had an alter ego called Veronica, whom he believed to be his wife, and that it may have been the fictional “Veronica” who carried out the attack.
Prosecutor Eleanor Durdy said that Hunter’s sister had allowed him and her ex-boyfriend to stay at her house in Scarborough because her brother didn’t have any electricity at his home.
On the Sunday morning in question, 9 November last year, Hunter suggested that the three of them have a roast dinner together.
They walked to the Aldi supermarket in Northway to buy chicken and vegetables for the dinner and Hunter bought a bottle of vodka.
“On the way back Hunter became argumentative about who was going to cook the roast,” said Ms Durdy.
Becoming increasingly agitated, Hunter shouted at his sister: “I’ll be cooking the chicken!”
When they returned to the house in Cromwell Terrace in South Cliff, Hunter started drinking from the vodka bottle and began shouting at his sister and her ex-boyfriend.
When his sister asked him to be quiet so they could the dinner together, he jumped on her, pushed her to the floor and bit her on the cheek, telling her he would “stab the fxxx out of you”.
Terrified, she managed to get back to her feet and headed for the front door, but Hunter grabbed her from behind and bit her on the lower and upper back, saying: “You’re not going anywhere.”
She managed to escape outside and was sat outside on the front doorstep with a friend where she called police.
But then Hunter appeared again, this time clutching a six-inch knife and walking towards her friend. As he did so, the victim went back inside and locked the front door.
However, Hunter managed to get back inside through the unlocked back door and, as he approached her in the kitchen, said: “You’d better lock all of your doors.”
He threw her to the ground and pushed her head into the floor with one hand, while brandishing the knife in the other. He then put the blade to her throat and cheek and made “stabbing motions” towards her eye.
When police arrived, Hunter was still on top of his sister on the kitchen floor while wielding the knife.
When an officer looked in through the back of the house, he could see the victim “clearly distraught, screaming loudly and appearing panicked”.
Another officer told Hunter to drop the knife, but he refused and walked “directly” towards that officer with a raised hand clutching the black-handled blade. Officers had to use a Taser gun to subdue Hunter and arrest him.
He was taken into custody where police found a small amount of cannabis in his jacket.
The named victim suffered bite marks to her cheek, neck and back and an injury to her ear.
Hunter, of Briercliffe, Scarborough, was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and threatening a person with a knife in a private place. He admitted the offences and appeared for sentence via video link today (March 24) after being remanded in Hull Prison.
Prosecutor Ms Durdy highlighted Hunter’s huge criminal record comprising 62 previous offences including robbery, aggravated burglary, assaulting a police officer, carrying a knife in public, threatening behaviour, affray and wounding causing grievous bodily harm.
In a statement read out by the prosecution, his sister said she was frightened by the incident but that her brother had serious mental-health problems which stemmed from a family tragedy three years ago.
She said he had developed a “second personality in his head called Veronica” whom he believed was his wife and for whom he bought gifts. He had also taken to wearing women’s clothing.
She said that “Veronica behaves very differently to my brother” and could be “incredibly nasty” to others.
“I do believe that on the day he assaulted me, ‘Veronica’ was in control of his actions,” she added.
She said that Hunter had never attacked her before and that at the time he was suffering from severe depression.
Barrister Emily Hassell said that after Hunter’s last prison sentence in 2018, he tried to turn his life around and got a job in a factory in Malton, but when the Covid pandemic struck his mental health deteriorated and he ended up being sectioned three times in 2020, 2023 and October last year.
The incident in Scarborough occurred just two weeks after his release from a psychiatric hospital.
A consultant psychiatrist said that Hunter had a psychotic disorder exacerbated by drug and alcohol misuse.
However, judge Simon Hickey said this didn’t diminish Hunter’s actions, nor reduce his culpability on the day, because “you took on board drink and/or drugs and that’s why you behaved like you did”.
He described the attack as a “determined and prolonged assault with a weapon and your teeth”.
Hunter was jailed for two years but was told he would serve less than half of that behind bars, minus the time he had spent on remand, before being released on prison licence.
