A MAN from Prestatyn who fractured his ex-girlfriend’s eye socket after having an affair with her sister has been spared jail.

Christopher Marsden, 28, of Tan Y Coed, was sentenced to 21 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, at Caernarfon Crown Court today (November 21).

He had previously admitted a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

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Prosecuting, Jemma Gordon told the court that Marsden and Georgia Thompson had began a relationship in 2021.

This had, by all accounts, started “very well”, but deteriorated after Marsden began having sexual relations with Ms Thompson’s sister.

On January 7, 2022, both had been drinking alcohol, and Ms Thompson had put Marsden’s children to bed, but in the early hours of January 8, she confronted him about his affair with her sister.

Marsden retaliated by taking hold of Ms Thompson’s hair, pulling it back and dragging her by it, before punching her with his right fist to her eye.

Such was the force applied to the punch that Ms Thompson sustained a fractured eye socket, as well as severe bruising.

Though Marsden apologised immediately, he denied punching Ms Thompson when interviewed by police, saying she had banged her head on a banister.

In a statement made some nine months later, Ms Thompson said her eye injury was still healing, and that her cheekbone continued to feel tender.

She added that she remembers the incident whenever she looks at herself in the mirror, and that being in a relationship with Marsden “changed her forever” and that she is “not the same person she used to be”.

Marsden had no previous convictions, and only one caution from 2015 for assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Defending Marsden, Gareth Bellis said his client is “effectively a man of good character”, and at “low risk of general crime”.

He and Ms Thompson have ended their relationship and have no intention of resuming it, Mr Bellis added.

Marsden was described as a man with a “strong work ethic”, and a father to two children with whom he has regular contact.

Mr Bellis invited the court to suspend his custodial sentence with “very strict requirements”, such as a curfew to limit his liberty, and unpaid work.

“It is my view that the risk posed by Mr Marsden is manageable in the community,” he said.

Sentencing, Judge Nicola Saffman agreed to suspend his sentence, but attached a number of requirements for Marsden to complete as part of the order.

Marsden will complete a 35-session “building better relationships” programme, 15 days’ rehabilitation activity requirements, a 120-day monitored period of alcohol abstinence, and 100 hours’ unpaid work.

He will pay £5,000 in compensation, a victim surcharge of £156, and adhere to a 10-year restraining order, preventing him from contacting Ms Thompson in that time.

Judge Saffman told him: “It’s clear to me that you can’t quite get your head around the fact that you punched a woman with whom you were in a relationship with full force, causing severe injury to her.”