A CO DOWN man who who threatened to kill his wife and dog and “bury them in the garden,” was jailed today for three months.
Newtownards Magistrates Court heard however that with time spent on remand, Richard McCorgary, who turned 54 today, will be freed from prison.
Defence counsel Paul McAlinden told the court that McCorgary, with an address at Clandeboye Place in Bangor, “will be on a flight” back to Malta today.
Appearing at court via videolink, McCorgary pleaded guilty to four charges, common assault of his wife Jacqueline McCorgary, damaging her phone, threatening to kill her and causing unnecessary suffering to her Staffordshire dog on 24 May this year.
The court heard that in an argument over flights being booked, he pushed her and the nine-month old dog off the bed before “grabbing the dog by the collar and throwing it down the stairs.”
When she went to check on the pup, he threatened that he would “smash her face in,” kill them both and “bury them in the back garden where no one would find them”, before storming from the house.
Mrs McCorgary discovered later that her phone had been broken after it was thrown against a wall.
When arrested and questioned by police, McCorgary claimed the allegations were “a complete fabrication.”
Mr McAlinden told the court the relationship was at an end and that the defendant intended to go back to Malta where he lives with his mother.
Imposing a six week sentence for the new offences and adding on a further six weeks for McCorgary breaching an earlier suspended sentence when he assaulted the same victim three months before the May incident, Deputy District Judge Rea said he was satisfied the custody threshold had been passed.
