Bricklayer threatened to chop partner’s head off with machete after beating her with pole

A Stockton bricklayer has been jailed for the shocking violence and threats he made towards his partner.

Callum Hay, 27, told his girlfriend that she must be “available to him every second of the day.” He left her a voice note, when she was at her friend’s house, asking “if another man was there…all I’m saying is, if you’re cheating I will chop your mother******* head off with a machete.”

The voice note and a video, showing Hay whacking his partner’s hands and leg with a wooden stick, were played to a judge at Teesside Crown Court on Friday. On January 14 of last year, Hay pinned the woman to the floor and punched her in the face.

He was under the influence of Zopiclone at the time. On August 10, Hay used the wooden pole to attack his girlfriend.

Throughout the four-year relationship, Hay spent time in prison. He was jailed for four-weeks for ignoring a domestic violence order which prohibited him from seeing his girlfriend.

He went to stay with her in 2022, when he was released from a 20-month prison sentence for an offence in 2019. He had been asked to leave a homeless hostel in Chester-Le-Street when he stabbed a support worker with a needle.

Hay, of the High Street in Stockton, pleaded guilty to three counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and to coercive behaviour in the relationship, between September 2023 and August 2024.

In mitigation, Chris Morrison told the court that both Hay and his girlfriend were drug users and that Hay had gone to stay with her when he was released, at her invitation.

Mr Morrison said that both of Hay’s parents are heroin users but that his grandmother has offered him a room at her home in Hartlepool, when he is released from prison and that a contractor has offered him bricklaying work.

Hay has spent the last seven months at HMP Holme House on remand.

Judge David Brooke told him that, during his meeting with a probation officer: “You tried to blame your victim – saying she was on drugs – despite us watching a video of you whacking her with a stick. You are someone who seeks to control your partner.”

Hay was locked up for 30 months. He will serve half of his sentence before being released on licence; and the time he has spent on remand will count towards his prison term.

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