Man jailed for domestic attack on woman near Dartmouth

A man has been jailed for a domestic attack on a woman, which saw him driving nine miles through South Hams lanes with his arm around her neck.

Philip Labrum, 61, of Deal, Kent, has been jailed for two years and ten months at Exeter Crown Court for attacking his estranged wife after tracking her down at her address in Stokenham, where she had gone to escape from him. 

Philip Labrum - Devon & Cornwall Police 

According to a court report by Edward Davenport, Labrum, a former solicitor who was struck off for insurance fraud in 2010, broke a court order to stay away from his wife. As they returned from a pub in Newton Abbot, where he had been drinking, he attacked her. 

She tried to leave the vehicle when he stopped near Dartmouth Golf and Country Club, but he pulled her back into the van and drove off, with her feet still outside the passenger door. 

The court heard how Labrum then drove the nine miles to Stokenham with her head in a choke-hold, driving with one hand. 

After years of abuse, his wife was too scared to report the assault, but when her phone was damaged in the incident, she took it to get it fixed in Lee Mill the next day - it was here that she broke down in tears to a shop assistant, who happened to be married to a police officer. 

Labrum admitted coercive and controlling behaviour, assault causing actual bodily harm and breach of a restraining order and a previous suspended sentence.

An indefinite restraining order was imposed, banning any contact with the victim other than through solicitors handling the couple’s divorce.

Miss Hollie Gilbery, defending, said Labrum would benefit more from probation than prison. She said Labrum has "mental health issues arising from an accident in which he suffered a head injury when he was 24".