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12
Dec
Harrogate man jailed for strangling partner's mother when she found them in bed
A man has been jailed for over two years for strangling his partner’s mother after she found the couple in bed together.
Joseph King, 32, leapt out of bed, grabbed the woman by the throat and squeezed so tight she was struggling to breathe, a jury at York Crown Court heard.
King, formerly of Starbeck and Boroughbridge, was found guilty of intentional strangulation today (December 12) following a three-day trial.
Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, moved straight to sentence and jailed the notorious former Harrogate man for two years and three months.
Prosecutor Oliver Connor told the jury that the named victim knew that her daughter had been seeing Mr King “for a few weeks” and – not surprisingly given his reputation – didn’t approve of the relationship.
It was at her home in Boroughbridge on January 14 last year when she found the couple in bed together in her daughter’s room and confronted them, whereupon they “leapt out of bed and became abusive towards her”.
Her daughter was shouting at her mother who “shouted back”, said Mr Connor. He added:
[The victim] grabbed a laptop or tablet from the bed and threw it onto the landing, telling [King] to get out of her daughter’s room.
She and her daughter continued to argue as King began pushing the woman out of the bedroom. Her daughter then punched and spat at her mother, said the prosecutor.
King then “took hold of [the victim] by the throat and pinned her to the floor” of the landing outside the bedroom.
His grip was so tight that the woman was struggling to breathe as her daughter assaulted her, added Mr Connor.
King then let go of the woman and went back inside the bedroom with his partner.
The victim tried to follow them in, but her daughter pushed her away. When she told King to get out, he told her that “she owed him money” but he eventually left the house.
The injured woman then went to her friend’s house where police and an ambulance were called.
Mr Connor said that the woman’s daughter had already admitted assaulting her mother, causing actual bodily harm, at a previous hearing at the lower court.
Previous crimes
King, lately of Cardigan Road, Headingley, Leeds, denied intentional strangulation but was found guilty by the jury this afternoon.
The guilty verdict, and his sentence of imprisonment, means we can now report his previous convictions, including possession with intent to supply cocaine, for which he was jailed for three-and-a-half years in March last year when he was living at an address on Ashbourne Road, Boroughbridge.
His previous crimes also include a conviction for drug supply in April 2019 when he was jailed for three years for possession with intent to supply cocaine and skunk cannabis in Harrogate.
In October 2023, he was given a community order and alcohol-treatment programme for driving while disqualified and without insurance.
In August 2024, he was given a 10-month jail sentence – to run consecutively to the three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for drug-dealing he was already serving – for dangerous driving following a police chase in which he crashed into a house, causing over £2,000 of damage.
In that incident, he sped from police around Harrogate and Knaresborough, overtaking multiple vehicles and taking “huge risks”.
When he crashed into the front of the house, bringing the chase to an abrupt end, the female householder was at home, but mercifully was at the back of the property.
King’s passengers had to be pulled out of the badly damaged car which was stuck in the front of the house.
He also had previous convictions for burglary, driving under the influence of drugs and failing to stop after an accident.
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