Girl, 16, left with facial scarring after controlling boyfriend stabs her in bloody Rotherham graveyard attack
“You committed a very serious crime when you stabbed several times the complainant in this case”
A violent and jealous teenager subjected his 16-year-old girlfriend to a campaign of coercive control, culminating in an early hours knife attack in a Rotherham graveyard that has left her with facial scarring.
The two teenagers had been in a relationship for around nine months when the defendant repeatedly slashed at the complainant and hit her with the handle of a knife, as he sat on top of her.
Neither the defendant, who is 17-years-old, or the complainant can be named due to their ages.
In an affecting statement read to the court, the complainant revealed how the facial scars she has been left with mean she cannot bear to look in the mirror.
The teenage girl said she feels as though she has to wear make-up in a bid to conceal the scars when she leaves the house because she is nervous that would stop and stare at her.
“I find myself crying about what happened,” the complainant said, adding that her dad has heard her crying and screaming in her sleep during night terrors.
In addition to multiple lacerations to her face which have left scars, the complainant also sustained a number of fractures to her right eye socket and left cheek bone in the attack.
“I feel no emotion towards [him] anymore. I don’t even like to talk about him,” the complainant said, adding: “I want to forget that part of my life ever happened, and move on to better things.”
The shocking attack occurred after the defendant asked his then girlfriend, the complainant, to meet him shortly after 3 o’clock in the morning in order to provide him some batteries for his X Box.
The defendant arrived at the scene, near to St Margaret’s Church on Church Street in Swinton, Rotherham, carrying a knife in a carrier bag, Sheffield Crown Court heard.
Heather Gilmore, prosecuting, described how in the hours leading up to the attack, the defendant asked the complainant if she had been meeting someone, and if she had been cheating on him.
Ms Gilmore said the defendant had also logged onto the complainant’s WhatsApp on his phone, and viewed a message she had received from her cousin’s friend.
A hearing held on July 13, 2026 heard how the pair walked through the graveyard together, and as they reached a bench, the defendant pushed the complainant to the ground, and began straddling her telling her he wanted to talk to her.
“The argument takes place at the bench. She takes the knife out of the bag. She’s lying on her back, with him having the knife. And then there’s tussling over it,” said Ms Gilmore.
She added: “She told him to put the knife down, they tussle…she managed to get to her feet and run off.”
The defendant followed the complainant into a nearby field, and continued in the attack as he was once again sitting on top of the complainant.
“He was slashing her in the face with the knife, and then hit her to the face with the handle of the knife. She says that was forceful,” Ms Gilmore told the court.
The hearing heard how the complainant suffered defensive injuries to her hands in the attack, and is also said to have bitten the defendant as she attempted to get him off her.
Ms Gilmore continued: “She was screaming throughout…he put his hand over her mouth to stop her screaming and said she would just make things worse for herself.”
The attack came to an end when the complainant managed to grab the defendant’s phone, and used the opportunity to get up and try to escape the defendant.
“He followed her asking her why she was leaving…he was saying: ‘we can sort it, we don’t need to tell anyone’. He said he would kill himself if she left him,” Ms Gilmore told the court.
The defendant subsequently ran off, while the complainant contacted her dad and asked him to come to meet her, the court heard.
A pair of residents living near to the graveyard were awoken by the sounds of the complainant’s “guttural” screams, and were so concerned that they left the house to check on the welfare of the person screaming.
The complainant had left by the time they arrived at the scene, but they encountered a male running hastily away, and also found the blood-stained knife used in the attack, which, by then, was broken in two and discarded on the ground.
Ms Gilmore described how the graveyard attack, which occurred in the early hours of February 21, 2026, was not the only time the defendant subjected the complainant to violence.
She described an earlier incident in which the defendant bit the complainant on the arm and also hit her to her leg, leaving a bruise, while the two teenagers were surrounded by numerous members of the public at a South Yorkshire shopping centre precinct.
Ms Gilmore said the controlling and coercive aspects of the defendant’s behaviour were meted out through abusive messages sent to the complainant, interspersed between communications where the pair declared their love for each other.
They included messages in which he called her a “piece of s***”; a “s**g;”; an “autistic c***; told her she “needs to die” and demanded to know why she did not respond immediately when he sent a goodnight message.
The defendant pleaded guilty to charges of engaging in controlling and coercive behaviour; a Section 18 assault and possessing a blade article in a public place at earlier hearings.
The Recorder of Sheffield, Judge Jeremy Richardson KC, told the sentencing hearing that he was leaning towards finding the defendant to be a “dangerous offender,” a finding under the law which carries with it an extended licence period.
He adjourned the sentencing hearing until October 2026, at the request of the defendant’s barrister, Rebecca Tanner, to allow for the preparation of an additional report from a psychologist.
Judge Richardson told the defendant: “You committed a very serious crime when you stabbed several times the complainant in this case.”
He continued: “You are now aged 17. You will be very shortly aged 18 years. I have no power to order your anonymity. For now you are protected…but when the time comes for you to be sentenced your name will be in the public domain.”
In mitigation, Ms Tanner said the defendant was only carrying a knife because of the meeting taking place in the early hours of the morning, and followed requests from the complainant asking him to arm himself with a blade for his own protection.
Ms Tanner told the court that the defendant has his own vulnerabilities, which include intellectual limitations; but said he had been responding well to the support and rehabilitation he had been receiving in custody.
Ms Tanner acknowledged that a custodial sentence was likely to follow, but urged the judge to make it a determinate, and not an extended, one.
She referred Judge Richardson to the defendant’s pre-sentence report which makes clear that the longer a young person stays in a custodial environment the more at risk they are of it being “exponentially more damaging,” and may also result in a higher likelihood of reoffending.
As he formally adjourned the hearing, Judge Richardson told the defendant he has “not made any final decisions.”
“All sentencing options remain open,” he said.