Survivor: ‘Don’t go near this man’

AuthorRic Stevens
Published date21 July 2022
Publication titleHawkes Bay Today
That is the advice of a domestic violence survivor to other women after her abuser, described as controlling and narcissistic, was sent to jail this week

During several hearings over the last six months, the Napier District Court has been told that Matthew Stephen Cox, 43, sent a stream of abusive text messages over two weeks - including 350 in one night - to his then partner as their relationship was breaking up.

He also sent pornographic images to the woman’s son and one of her friends, telling them they were of his victim.

Earlier, while they were living in a Napier motel, Cox assaulted the woman and sought to control every aspect of her life. She was not even allowed to go to the toilet with the door closed.

When she tried to leave him, he confronted her outside a Napier superette. As the woman locked herself in her car, Cox yelled abuse, holding up his fist and repeatedly saying, “do I have to strangle you?”

In the seven months they were together, police attended 13 family violence call-outs involving the couple.

Cox has now been sentenced to 10 months in prison after appearing before Judge Gordon Matenga in the Napier court on Tuesday.

He had earlier admitted a representative charge of misusing a telecommunications device, in relation to the texts, in which Cox accused the woman of infidelity and demanded to inspect her intimately to make sure that she hadn’t.

He was found guilty after a judge-alone trial on two charges of assault and one of intimidation.

Judge Matenga said after the trial that Cox was a “controlling man” who sought to manage all aspects of his victim’s life while they were living at the motel.

“She was forced to remain indoors. She was not allowed to smoke outside. Mr Cox insisted that she remain within his sight, even while she was going to the toilet,” the judge said.

Cox’s victim, who asked to be called Linny, told Open Justice this week that she was happy that Cox had received a term of imprisonment, but she wished it had been longer and noted that he would be released after five months.

“Whether it is effective in allowing him to be a nice human being, I...

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