Leigh fireman Richard Blakebrough domestic abuse trial

Richard Blakebrough, 44, formerly of Fairmead Avenue, Benfleet, allegedly told the woman: “I hope this kills the baby.”

She suffered a miscarriage a day later, Basildon Crown Court heard on Monday (August 24).

Blakebrough is charged with waging a campaign of abuse whilst employed as watch manager at Leigh Fire Station, inflicting black eyes and other injuries.

“This defendant bullied her,” prosecutor Carolyn Gardiner told a jury of eight men and four women.

“He used threats, intimidation, humiliation, manipulation and abuse in order to punish her, undermine her, frighten her and keep her under his control.

“The behaviour, the Crown say, was domestic abuse, designed to make her dependent upon him and strip away her sense of freedom and self-worth.”

Blakebrough allegedly threatened the woman: “If you want to see violence, I will show you real violence. I will be able to smash your face in with one punch.”

He is charged with five counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH).

A sixth charge accuses him of controlling or coercive behaviour, including “inflicting physical violence” on the woman on even more occasions.

She claims she was banned from speaking to her parents or having male friends and made to have her wages paid into a bank account Blakebrough controlled.

“She became a shell of her former self, losing two stones in weight, as well as all of her self-confidence,” said Mrs Gardiner.

She said the woman managed on one occasion to audio record Blackbrough’s abuse.

He accepts unpleasant behaviour, jurors were told, but denies criminality and says his alleged victim is “lying and exaggerating” with the collusion of her parents.

Mrs Gardiner said the complainant had handed over contemporaneous diaries and notes to Essex Police, in addition to a large volume of text messages.

Firefighter Blakebrough is accused of “reproductive abuse”, jurors heard.

They repeatedly tried for babies, but when it seemed the woman might be pregnant he would change his mind and pressure her to get terminations, said Mrs Gardiner.

This allegedly included “telling her he couldn’t deal with her looking pregnant because that would be repulsive.”

“If there was a chance she could be pregnant, he would tell her to take tablets to have an abortion,” the prosecutor claimed – but then, when she did, “he would criticise her and call her a baby murderer.”

On one occasion when the woman did become pregnant, said Mrs Gardiner, “There was an argument because he wanted her to have an abortion but kept changing his mind.

“He kicked her in the stomach while she was standing on the stairs, saying, ‘I hope this kills the baby’.”

The woman miscarried the child.

“She didn’t want him to blame himself and told him it might not have been associated with the assault the night before,” Mrs Gardiner said.

She said it was only one of “many times he was physically abusive to her, including when she was pregnant.

“He would hit her round the head with open palms, poke her in her sternum, punch her in the thighs, kick her on her shins.”

He would also drag the woman around the house, Mrs Gardiner claimed, and “hold her by the neck up against a wall.”

On one occasion, when he “hit her multiple times around the head”, he told her it was “revenge” for aborting his child, jurors were told.

“He would tell her that she is worthless, that she is fat, she brought nothing to the table and everybody would be better off if she were dead.

“If she got his rules wrong, he would ridicule her, he would beat her, he would throw her out of the house.

“She tried to run away on a number of occasions but he managed to get her back.”

He would do this in part by threatening to kill himself, said the prosecutor – “another way of exerting control… She felt like a puppet.”

The trial continues.