Heavy Sentence Follows Hammer Attack

A man has been given a 25-year sentence after being found guilty to attempting to murder his heavily pregnant girlfriend in a hammer attack.

Simon Morris, 37, from Prestatyn, north Wales had denied trying to kill his girlfriend Nerys Price, 35, as she slept beside him at the couple's home in Prestatyn, north Wales.

Mold Crown Court heard how Morris had hit Ms Price, who was 38 weeks pregnant at the time, twice on the head with the sharp end of a bricklayer's hammer last August.

He tried to claim that she had been attacked in a botched burglary attempt, but Ms Price told the jury that, when she regained consciousness that she asked Morris to call police, but he appeared to be dialling incorrect numbers.

She was taken to hospital after contacting emergency services herself, where she gave birth to her daughter Freya by emergency Caesarean section and underwent emergency surgery herself for treatment for two skull fractures.

Both mother and daughter have made full recoveries.

The court heard how Ms Price, who now lives in Ruthin, Denbighshire, had begun to have doubts about her boyfriend's "peculiar behaviour" following her release from hospital. He was then arrested on August 23, eight days after the attack.

The court heard how the couple had changed their wills - a decision which, it was said, Morris was "the driving force" behind - and that he had also begun a relationship with another woman.

The defence had argued that a reason for a break-in at the couple's may have been because intruders wanted to steal Morris' American Chevrolet Corvette.

He had been on trial in May, but the jury failed to reach a verdict and a retrial was ordered.

(KMcA/BMcC)