Police officer denies assaulting pregnant girlfriend (From Daily Echo)
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Police officer denies assaulting pregnant girlfriend
9:58am Tuesday 4th September 2012 in News
Matthew Cherry
A POLICE officer has denied he was the masked attacker who repeatedly punched his pregnant ex-girlfriend in the stomach because he did not want her to have his baby.
Matthew Cherry, 35, pictured, of Wimpson Lane, Millbrook , Southampton , said he was renovating a house in another town when Caroline Craft was attacked by a man at her flat.
When asked by his defence counsel if he was the attacker who had gone to her property in Bournemouth, Dorset, Cherry replied: “No I was not.”
The prosecution alleges it was Cherry who barged his way into Miss Craft’s home in March last year dressed in a balaclava and hooded top to carry out the attack to try and force a miscarriage.
Cherry, who was a serving officer in the Dorset force at the time but also owned several properties, was angry, aggressive and desperate for Miss Craft to have an abortion, Winchester Crown Court has heard previously.
Giving evidence, Cherry agreed he was unhappy when Miss Craft, 27, had told him she was pregnant in October 2010 and he had tried to persuade her to have an abortion.
He admitted that he had been “forceful” when the couple went to see a doctor about the pregnancy and the medic was so concerned about his behaviour she sought advice from a colleague.
“If I’m honest, I didn’t want the child in that particular time of my life. I wanted a termination at that point,” he told the jury. “I put pressure on her (Miss Craft) to have a termination.”
The couple had been living together at the time Miss Craft became pregnant but Cherry said he moved out when she decided to have the child to give her space and because he would go on about the issue.
He denied telling Miss Craft or her friend Carla Hutchings that he had thought about punching her in the stomach so that she would lose the child but he did say the couple had talked about a miscarriage.
Cherry, formerly from Parkstone in Poole, who has been a police constable for nearly ten years, denies attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent.
The trial has already heard that Miss Craft, who is also a police officer with Dorset, did not suffer serious injuries and she gave birth to a healthy boy.
Proceeding .
