“Any woman who goes near you should be aware sooner or later they are going to be clobbered,” York’s top judge told a stalker.

Wednesday, 3 September 2025 19:41

By Megi Rychlikova

Serial domestic abuser Ashley Paul Watson, 30, was being sentenced for crimes against a now ex-partner - the third partner who had suffered at his hands, York Crown Court heard.

Brooke Morrison, prosecuting, said his offending had included telling a mother-to-be “he would assault her so that she was no longer pregnant with his child and he would be rid of her".

In his latest set of offences, Watson had broken into his now ex-partner’s home and searched it, deluged her with 95 phone calls in less than two days, threatened to smash up her place of work and bitten her on the breast.

The ex-partner told the court in a personal statement she worries about what Watson will do when he is released from prison.

The Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, told him: “If I could give you more, I would.

“You are a woman beater. You will always be a woman beater, that is the nature of the beast. They come back again, and again, and again. It is always the same sort of offending, criminal damage, harassment, criminal damage, common assault, criminal damage. This must be the third partner that has brought you to court. “

Watson’s current partner, who his barrister Daisy Wrigley said is standing by him, listened in the public gallery, as the judge told him: “Any woman who goes near you should be aware, sooner or later, they are going to be clobbered.”

Watson, of Gallows Hill, Ripon, pleaded guilty on the day of his trial to stalking his ex-partner between February 1 and March 2 this year and assaulting her on March 10.

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