Chesterfield man attacked a teenager with a cat, forced his fist down her mother's throat and bit stranger in taxi office

Curtis Marples appeared before Chesterfield Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, September 8 to be sentenced for a raft of offences - mostly against the two women he was sharing a home with.

A separate assault took place in the offices of Central Cars in Chesterfield, when the 21-year-old was returning from a drunken night out in Sheffield with three friends on January 19.

The offences against the two women, one who was a 17-year-old, all occurred at the home Marples had been sharing with them in Haslam Court, Chesterfield.

He assaulted the two women initially on November 14 last year but returned to the property on February 28 and pulled the older woman from her bed and assaulted her - breaching a bail condition which banned him from the property.

Prosecuting, Angela Hadfield said that Marples, now of St Helen’s Street, Chesterfield, had entered into a relationship with one of the women who was significantly older than him, and he had effectively entered into a parental role towards her teenage daughter and a younger child.

Describing the incident in November, she said Marples had been rowing about taking the younger child to school and caused damage to a staircase and a mobile phone before turning on the teenage girl.

“He grabbed the cat by the scruff of its neck and forced it into her face and held it there for about 20 seconds,” Mrs Hadfield said. “She became concerned for its life and she became concerned for her own life, causing it to scratch her face.”

She added that the daughter then took the other child to school, and when she returned he hit her and pushed her off a chair.

Following the incident, Marples was banned from going to the family home, but in February he returned uninvited late at night, dragged the mother from her bed and forced his fist down her throat.

Mitigating, David Gittins said that Marple had been the victim of domestic violence as a child and had already been on an electrically monitored curfew for the past 89 days.

Describing the attack on the 17-year-old, he said: “There’s not a lot of difference in their ages and it’s always been a fractious relationship. It’s difficult when someone becomes a sort of father figure who isn’t much older than you.”

Sentencing Marples, who admitted the three assaults and two counts of criminal damage, to 42 weeks in prison, suspended for two years, District Judge Andrew Davison said “he had acted like an animal”.

He also ordered Marples to complete 12 rehabilitation activity days, a building better relationships programme and a further 12-week curfew.

He ordered him to pay a total of £500 to his three victims in compensation, and issued a three-year restraining order, banning Marples from contacting the two women or going to their home.

He is also banned from entering Central Taxis, in Corporation Street, for 12 months.

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