A police officer who pushed his expectant partner down the stairs detained after being found guilty of using coercive and controlling behavior.
In the course of their relationship between February 2019 and January of last year, Thomas Gair, 23, physically and mentally abused Chloe Bradley, a fellow Cleveland Police recruit.
She was shunned by her friends, had her whereabouts during evenings out demanded of her, was made fun of for her weight, and was told to have an abortion since he didn’t want the child.
When Gair picked her up from a pub in the course of one assault in January 2020, he forced her out of the car before reversing into her as she was rising to her feet, sending her “totally flying.”
She later told police: ‘I fell, and I think it was the side of my head I landed on, but it knocked me out unconscious.
‘He was apologetic saying he didn’t mean to do that, but he did because he told me he was going to run me over.’
Gair was found guilty of controlling and coercive behaviour, three counts of ABH, one of assault by beating and one of stalking and remanded in custody ahead of sentence on April 24.
Ian West, prosecuting, previously told jurors: ‘Chloe Bradley and Thomas Gair got together in about January of 2019.
‘Chloe was still living with her parents at the time and when they first got together, they lived at Chloe’s parents for a while.
‘But then they got a house or their own and in due course Chloe fell pregnant and in 2021 she had a child.
‘In interview (the woman) will describe the relationship she had with Thomas Gair.
‘She will tell you at first it was fun, and they were a young couple in love but then things started to change with the odd insult and controlling behaviour about where she was.
‘They stayed together. Chloe loved him and she thought he would change but unfortunately things did change for the worse because it developed from more verbal abuse to physical abuse.’
Jurors were shown video of one of Ms Bradley’s interviews in which she told a detective: ‘When I fell pregnant, he told me to have an abortion or he was going to leave me.
‘He said we couldn’t afford it and it would ruin our lives. He told me I would be a crap mother and I was probably going to lose the baby.
‘I was really ill when I was pregnant, I was backwards and forwards to the hospital, but he offered me no help or support, he wanted me to have a miscarriage.
‘He would poke and jab me in the stomach, and he would threaten “I will push you down the stairs”.’
The court heard that is exactly what happened after another row about her pregnancy at their home in Norton, Teesside, in May 2021.
Ms Bradley told police: ‘I was going upstairs to the top floor of our house when he was coming down. He was shouting and screaming in my face, and he pushed me back and I fell right down the stairs.
‘I hit my head twice and that knocked me out. When I woke up, he was panicking saying, “Get up get up get up”.’
Jurors were told the couple’s new colleagues eventually reported Gair’s abuse, having identified it from the training they all underwent together before being sent out on patrol.
Mr West said: ‘When Chloe Bradley joined the police force, she got into a cohort of other trainee police officers, and they began to socialise together.
‘It was in the context of social evenings that they began to notice how she talked about Thomas Gair and saw and heard the messages she received from him.
‘Colleagues began to try to press her to report what was happening to the police, but she did not want to break up the family.
‘One friend then took matters out of her hands and reported him to a confidential police hotline and from there the balloon went up.’
It emerged that even after she left him, Gair continued to spy on her and monitor who visited her by watching the CCTV after changing the password so she couldn’t access it.
Acting Superintendent John Bonner, Acting Head of Cleveland Police Directorate of Standards and Ethics, hailed the other student officers for ‘doing the right thing’ in reporting Gair.
He said it allowed them to take ‘immediate and robust action in arresting Mr Gair within 24 hours’ and then obtain a stalking prevention order.
Gair was kicked out of the force on March 17 this year, ‘having never been in contact with the public during his short time in the police service’, he added.
Mr Bonner said gross misconduct proceedings will now commence aimed at barring him from ever serving as a police officer again.