WARNING – DISTRESSING CONTENT: Lauren Queeley said the incident in Porthcawl, in Bridgend, Wales, led her to Clare’s Law, “one of the best things that has ever come out for the safety of men and women”
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CCTV footage captures the moment a man headbutts his former partner in a busy pub in Porthcawl
CCTV footage captured the horror moment a man headbutted his partner in the middle of a busy pub.
Lauren Queeley, 33, heard a “crunch” and was left with bruising that lasted for weeks after she was violently headbutted by a former partner. The couple had gone out to the pub for a night of pleasant socialising when Johnathan Landry attacked her in the middle of the crowded venue.
She said she watched her then-boyfriend’s face switch after he disappeared for 45 minutes, adding that she didn’t know “how I didn’t get knocked out”. After she turned to the police and bravely reported what they described as a “football headbutt”, she discovered that the sickening assault wasn’t Landry’s first against a woman.
While the “whirlwind” relationship started positively, Lauren told Wales Live, with the two forming a close connection, she noticed his behaviour take a more ominous turn. She said: He was good at saying things that would make him seem like a catch, that I was lucky to be with him. For example telling me that someone else had asked for his number or that another woman was flirting with him.
“He would say to me during arguments: ‘Do you know how lucky you are to have me?’ and: ‘If I wasn’t with you I could go out and get anyone I wanted’.” The night he attacked her at the pub, Lauren said the two had been there for “about an hour” before he returned and called her a “psycho” before launching the headbutt.
She said: “After my friends left we went to the Beachcomber and we had been in there for about an hour before he disappeared for 45 minutes. When he came back in I asked him where he had been. He called me a psycho. He was sitting on a chair and because it was loud I had to lean into him to hear what he was saying and then his whole face suddenly changed, his eyes changed, and he headbutted me.
“How I didn’t get knocked out I don’t know. I have blocked most of the incident out but I can remember a crunching noise when he headbutted me. The pain was horrific. After it happened he walked away like nothing had happened.” Distressing footage Lauren bravely shared shows the moment of the headbutt, with the couple seen bent towards one another in the crowded room before Landry violently slams his head into her face.
Once Lauren said she shook herself out of what she said was a “I love him, he didn’t mean it’ mindset” and stopped searching for excuses, she reported the incident to the police. Landry was later sentenced to 16 weeks in prison, and had a restraining order issued against him that prevents him from contacting Lauren for 24 months.
During the trial, she discovered that Landry has nine convictions for 14 offences, among them an assault on a previous partner resulting in a community order handed down shortly before he met Lauren. Lauren credited the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, known as Clare’s Law – which allows women to ask police whether their partner is someone who could behave violently towards them – as a key to helping her wake up to Landry’s abuse.
She said: “When I got called in for safeguarding [after the incident] I did Clare’s Law and I was nearly sick in the room at the things I learned about that man. The man I let around my family, who I thought loved me, I let move into my home and make it his own. My heart shattered a million times over again.
“I spent this entire year being so open and honest telling him things I hadn’t even told my family before. And here I was seeing that he had a number of allegations against him. It was really, really scary. I know I am not the first victim of Jonathan Landry but I do not want him to ever make another woman feel as I have felt ever again.”
