A ‘PSYCHO’ football fan has been found guilty of a brutal attack on his partner who he left looking after his two dogs while he went on a match day bender.
Rhys Munslow started drinking during the lunchtime game at Torquay United and was so drunk when he got back to his flat in Newton Abbot that he fell through the door and hit his head on a coffee table.
He had been out for more than eight hours and vented his drunken rage on his two dogs and his on-off girlfriend, who tried to protect the animals.
He barged his way into the room where she had barricaded herself with the pets and pinned her down on the bed before knocking five of her teeth out with a series of blows from his knee or elbow.
She fled the flat with blood streaming from her mouth and was filmed moments later on a police officer’s bodycam as she sobbed: ‘He’s going psycho in there, he is going to kill the dogs. He’s just knocked my teeth out.’
She lost two teeth straight away and five more had been loosened so severely that they had to be removed, causing her to wear dentures.
Munslow stripped off and went to bed after carrying out the attack and was so comatose that he did not wake up as police first hammered at his door and then broke it down.
Officers found him naked under a duvet with his two dogs on top of him.
He denied causing the injuries and claimed Ms Goodwin had been fine when she left his flat after an argument.
A jury at Exeter Crown Court less than an hour to convict him and Judge Anna Richardson adjourned his case for five weeks for a probation pre-sentence report.
She told him that all sentencing options, including immediate custody, were possible.
Munslow, aged 26, of Queen Street, Newton Abbot, denied assault causing actual bodily harm but was found guilty.
During a short trial, Mr Brian Fitzherbert, prosecuting, said Munslow attacked Ms Goodwin after returning from a Torquay United match at around 8.30pm on October 2, 2021.
He showed the jury images which she took while in an ambulance and bodycam footage taken by police of her sobbing hysterically and with blood pouring out of her mouth.
She told the officer: ‘He’s going psycho in there, he is going to kill the dogs. He’s just knocked my teeth out.’
Mr Fitzherbert said she had been in an on off relationship with Munslow for about a year and had stayed at his flat that day to look after his two pets, an American bulldog and a Staffie.
She was filmed with her injuries outside his flat at 9.09 pm and police then tried to rouse him by knocking on the door before breaking it down when he did not answer.
They found him asleep, naked in bed, with injuries including apparent bite marks and scratches to his back.
Ms Goodwin told the jury Munslow was so drunk or under the influence of something that he fell through the front door of his top floor flat, while talking to an imaginary person on the stairs.
He then fell over onto a coffee table, cut his head, and attacked the dogs when they went to greet him, punching one of them.
She retreated to the bedroom with the animals and tried to jam the door shut by leaning her back against it while bracing herself against a wardrobe.
She said: ‘He was punching and kicking at the door and trying to barge his way in.
‘My foot slipped and me managed to get in. He pinned me down on the bed with his hand around my throat and with his knees on my arms.
‘He was swearing and I was screaming for help. There was a huge kerfuffle with the dogs jumping on the bed.
‘I felt an impact on my face, maybe two or three, I lost count .
‘Then saw the blood and felt the pain in my lower jaw. It could have been his elbow or his knee. It did not feel like a fist.
‘I was screaming for help and wriggled out.’
She said he called her fat and worthless and appeared strange and unable to accept that he had caused her injuries.
She said: ‘He had a gormless expression and said ‘I didn’t do that, did I?
‘I thought he had taken something. He was not in his right mind. He was talking to people who weren’t there.
‘He was so drunk he didn’t know what he had done.’
Munslow gave evidence that he had only drunk two or three pints but had argued with Ms Goodwin because she complained about him coming home later than planned.
He said there had been no violence at the flat and she had no injuries when she left. He said he had no idea how she came to be hurt but that he had not done it.
He explained his own injuries by saying he had been in a play fight with a friend the previous day.