Woman had no clue why she was bloodied and bruised – until a nurse told her four words
'I was hurting everywhere. He had battered me all over.'
A woman who suffered a head injury so deep it reached her skull had no idea what had happened until a nurse said four words to her.
‘Your boyfriend did it.’
Emily Lewis, 24, was beaten and strangled by Thomas Jones, her boyfriend of three years who was high on cocaine and alcohol.
The woman from Neath, Wales, suffered an 8cm long and 4cm wide head injury, a fractured cheekbone and was left covered in bruises
The attack, which happened overnight between February 18 and 19 last year, left Emily needing 19 stitches.
‘During our relationship, he was never massively aggressive to me,’ she recalled.
‘In the year leading up to it, I thought he had a drinking problem because he would go out all the time and come home late and then have a go at me.
‘There were traits of negative behaviour towards me but nothing like this. I wouldn’t have described it as a toxic relationship.’
Yet on February 18, 2023, the couple went with friends to Wind Street in the heart of Swansea’s nightlife scene only for Jones to get kicked out of a venue.
‘He was calling me names, calling me a c**t, telling me to f**k off, and telling me to go away while I was trying to defuse the situation,’ Emily said.
‘We went into another place and he got kicked out of there.’
The pair returned home – Emily has no memory of what happened after they closed the front door.
‘I remember being inside the house and I remember him strangling me to the point where I couldn’t breathe,’ she said.
‘I could feel myself drifting in and out of consciousness. I was trying to kick him off me but I’m small compared to him so I wasn’t able to.’
She added: ‘While I was on the floor he was [punching] me repeatedly to the point where I was in so much pain I told him to kill me because I couldn’t stand it any more.
‘I was hurting everywhere. He had battered me all over.’
Swansea Crown Court heard how Emily phoned her mum 10 times to help her.
When she arrived, Jones punched her in the face as she took her daughter to Morriston Hospital.
Waking up in a hospital room the following morning in ‘absolute agony’, Emily said she realised the extent of her injuries after looking at her mobile phone camera.
‘My head was shaved, I had stitches in my head, and my face was swollen up like a balloon,’ Emily said.
‘I threw my phone because I was in so much shock and I didn’t know who did it. I asked the nurse and she told me it was my boyfriend.
‘I was shocked and traumatised when I found out he did this. My life completely changed in one night.
‘The day before we were fine and now I haven’t spoken to him since.’
Seeing a mirror now brings Emiyl right back to that morning, seeing her bloodied and bruised face for the first time since the attack. Ammonia is something she is trying to live with.
Emily still bears the scar from the gash she sustained on her head, one prosecutors suggested was caused by the screen of an Alexa found shattered and splattered with blood.
In a victim statement read directly to Jones, Emily said: ‘I am a survivor.
‘I have a scar that reminds me of how strong I will become. You haven’t taken away my will to live. You haven’t broken my spirit.
‘This scar is a constant reminder of what happened but it does not define my future. I can’t bear the thought of this happening to someone else.’
Jones was sentenced to 18 months behind bars on April 22.
He was also handed a two-month term to run concurrently for battery following his actions towards Emily’s mother.
He will serve half this sentence in prison before being released on licence. A restraining order will also prevent him from contacting Emily for three years.
Judge Thomas told the defendant: ‘This offence is simply too serious to justify anything other than immediate custody.
‘A message has to go out to people, particularly men, that prison will be the inevitable outcome.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.