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Legal
Bez found guilty of assaulting ex-girlfriend
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 12 August 2010
Happy Mondays dancer Bez, real name Mark Berry, has been found guilty of assaulting his former girlfriend by a court in Manchester. Manchester Magistrates Court heard that Bez had accused former model Monica Ward of stealing money from him in a row at the couple’s flat in the city in May. Ward said that he had dragged her through the flat, throttling her, after suggesting that she had stolen a £300 payment their band Domino Bones had been paid for a gig they’d played the night before.
According to the BBC, Ward said: “I told him he had put down the money somewhere and forgotten where he had put it; he has a history of mislaying things. He had both hands around my neck, he was just looking insane and squeezing me for about five seconds. He told me he was going to kill me before the police arrived”.
Later, she said, Bez returned, kicking down the door of the flat and taking a £20 note before running off again. She said that he had been violent towards her before as well, but admitted that she had also attacked him in the past.
Bez, however, denied the charges, telling the court that he had hidden money in the flat and found some of it missing. As this was not the first time this had happened, he alleged, he told Ward that he was leaving her and walked out of the flat.
He said: “There was no battering, no throttling, that is her fabrication. She has always been violent towards me. I loved the woman, I loved her with all my heart. I have forgiven and forgotten so many times. I feel as if my reputation as a man has been destroyed. The last few months I have felt like a rapist. I feel my soul has been ripped out of me”.
As for the later incident, he said he had returned to the flat because he was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt and that the front door had simply collapsed when he pushed it.
However, the magistrates found Bez guilty, the chair of the bench Marie Cash saying that they had found Ward to be a “credible witness”, and telling Bez: “We are not saying it was a deliberate attack but we do believe that a technical assault took place”.
Bez described the hearing as a “kangaroo court”. He will be sentenced on 25 Aug.
