BoxRec

A ROMSEY boxer has been jailed for five and a half years for a series of violent attacks on a teenage girl.

Henry Castle treated the 17-year-old “like a rag doll” when he repeatedly punched and kicked her on the way home from a pub, a court heard.

After the beating, in which she suffered fractured a wrist and nose, bitemarks to her shoulder and forearm, as well as multiple cuts and abrasions, he forced her to undress in front of a mirror to humiliate her.

Prosecutor, Tom Wright, described how Castle, 31, had been driving the teenager home after celebrating New Year’s Eve together in a Romsey pub, but on the way his genial mood changed.

“To use her words, it was as though the devil had got inside him,” said Mr Wright.

At an alleyway, he dragged her from the car and began punching and kicking her.

He then bundled her back into the car, but at the Stoneymarsh car park on the Romsey-Stockbridge road, he again dragged her from the vehicle, and subjected her to another prolonged assault, with kicks and punches.

Mr Wright said he also tried to force her head into a puddle before dragging her back to the car and dumping her in the boot.

At a house in Winchester, he forced her to undress and made her stand in front of a mirror, mocking her and saying how ugly she was. He even tried to goad his dog into biting her.

Castle’s attitude then suddenly changed and he started to clean her wounds and apologising before taking her to the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, in Winchester. He then tried to persuade her to give police a different account of what happened, saying that she had been robbed.

At the close of the prosecution’s case, the public gallery was cleared and Judge John Beashel asked the victim, who had been sitting in the public gallery, to come forward, so he and the two barristers could inspect her faint facial scars.

Castle, of Allan Grove, Romsey, pleaded guilty at Southampton Crown Court to wounding with intent.

Passing sentence, the judge, who read a letter from Castle and five references, told him he was strong and fit and he had launched “sadistic and sustained attacks” on the slightly-built teenager.

“You compounded her fear and pain by telling her that she was going to die and that is what she thought was going to happen. It beggars belief what you did to her – it was almost torture. You humiliated and degraded her. You were heartless and I hope that in your prison cell you will reflect on that cruelty.”

Mitigating, Jonathan Simpson said the violence had not been premeditated and was out of character, and Castle’s apology was not “artificial remorse.”

Likening him to “a tightly-coiled spring” that unwound, Mr Simpson said: “That particular night, the red mist descended, passion turned to fury and he unleashed a wild and sustained attack, treating her like a rag doll.”

Boxing had been his “refuge” from the break-up of his parents’ marriage and loss of his uncle.

His career, he added, was almost certainly over.

“He can relate to those coming from the wrong side of the tracks and he has invested much time and effort into steering them to a better future.”

Castle, who boxed at light heavyweight, had denied sexual assault and kidnap and the prosecution accepted his pleas after consulting with the girl in the case.

forcefraser wrote:Sick puppy.

Was he smashed at the time? It sounds like he was sobre. He must have some kind of personality disorder by the sound of things.

G0mez wrote:To quote a famous singer,

"Beware the bottled thoughts of angry young men.
Secret compartments hide all of the skeletons."

5 years is not given out lightly i can tell you - i can only assume it was contested and they threw the book at him.

coneye wrote: If theres no fear of the law there is no law.

The Law wrote:

coneye wrote: If theres no fear of the law there is no law.

Well said

MachoMan09 wrote:

Rocky Balboa wrote:I'd have smashed him straight in the face with a knuckle duster! BANG!

Do you carry a knuckle duster on a regular basis?