Judge guilty of hitting wife after she fails to convince court she beat herself up

James Allen, QC, 61, and his assistant deputy coroner wife, Melanie, 44, were forced to listen to accusations that both of them lied in court to cover up his beating of her during a hearing at Bradford Magistrates’ Court.

James Allen had been accused of assaulting his wife of 14 years, by beating her at their home in Woolley, near Wakefield, and was found guilty of common assault.

He will be sentenced later after a pre-sentencing report has been prepared and last night a spokesman at the Judicial Communications Office said: “This case has been referred to the Office for Judicial Complaints for inquiries to be made.”

During the four-day trial, which started in December, the court heard the couple had a “heated” argument after he became irritable because his wife was comforting their cleaner Amanda Clarke who turned up unexpectedly following her mother’s recent diagnosis of cancer.

The court was told Mrs Allen accused her husband of being “unreasonable” and “selfish” when he complained of feeling hungry.

Allen said he had driven back from Scotland following a week’s holiday and was fed-up at having to wait 90 minutes upstairs while his wife comforted Ms Clarke.

Mrs Allen has said police have exaggerated the extent of her injuries when they were called to the house on the evening of Saturday, February 20, and denies telling an officer her husband had drunk a bottle of wine.

David Holderness, closing the prosecution’s case, said there was a clear difference in the evidence given by the Allens and that of the police. He said: “It comes down to this, are the police telling the truth about these injuries?”

He added: “Those attending within 15 minutes of the incident have no motive to exaggerate what they saw.”

The account Mrs Allen gave in court was different to what she initially told officers, the court heard.

Mr Holderness said: “She never ever mentions self-harm or self-punching as a cause to the police of the state they see her in. In fact, on the contrary she makes remarks which suggest Mr Allen was responsible for these injuries.

“She said, for example, he had ‘done it to me before’. She said he would say she had done it to herself. She said she would divorce him.”

Mrs Allen produced photographs she had taken in the week after the alleged assault when the trial was already under way. Mr Holderness said: “Whether that amounts to manipulation is obviously a matter for the court’s concern.”

Anton Lodge QC, mitigating, said Mrs Allen would be embarrassed by her self-harming, an affliction which is too embarrassing to make up.

He said: “To say publicly that I have self-harmed and I have self-harmed before is such an embarrassing admission of truth that it only can be the truth.”

In response to the accusation that the couple had lied, Mr Lodge told District Judge Daphne Wickham: “You know what public position each of them holds.”

He added: “Both of them have considerable years of experience in courts.”

Dr Jason Payne-James, an expert in assault and self-harm, said although rare, about five to 10 per cent of self-harm cases he saw were those who had struck themselves in the face.

Looking at photographs Mrs Allen had taken in the days following the alleged attack, he said the bruising around her eyes was consistent with blunt force, which she may have applied herself.

The district judge was not convinced Mrs Allen had punched herself. Mrs Wickham said: “When she was describing it, that is demonstrating it, I am not satisfied she was describing the sort of area or level of violence that would be required to reach bruises and injuries that she sustained.”