Soldier assaulted ex-partner after row outside pub

A DEMOTED soldier used a “swiping kick” to bring his ex-girlfriend to the floor outside a pub.

- By ESTHER HALLIGAN

Mason Gill, 23, assaulted his ex-partner in a Boxing Day row after he realised she didn’t want to get back together with him. The couple had broken up weeks earlier.

Gill walked off, on December 26, leaving his ex on the ground outside The Black Bull pub on Yarm High Street. He returned minutes later, but Teesside Crown Court heard a group of women blocked him from getting near his victim.

The soldier, who serves with the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers, based at Thirsk, then confronted an ex-boyfriend of the woman and punched him in the face. CCTV captured a scuffle between the two men outside the busy pub.

The woman later refused to give a statement to the police, saying that Gill had told her he would “blow up her house’ if she did, the court heard.

Gill pleaded guilty to two counts of assault and breaching a suspended sentence order, at an earlier hearing.

He has a previous conviction for attacking a woman - he punched a different victim in the face, in Stockton, in 2024. When the woman got up, he punched her again. For that, he was handed a suspended sentence.