Granting bail to Cameron Pike but with a multitude of conditions, Mr Justice Horner made it crystal clear to the 31-year-old that “if there is any suggestion of a breach, or any evidence of a breach, your bail will be forfeit.”
“If you are back before me, you will definitely be back in custody until the outcome of your case,” declared the Belfast High Court judge.
Pike, from the Beersbridge Road in the east of the city, is facing nine charges, alleged to have been committed between 9-12 May this year, including accusations of domestic abuse, non-fatal strangulation, burglary with intent to cause damage, making threats to kill, possessing a weapon, causing criminal damage, assault and causing unnecessary suffering to a dog.
The court has heard that according to the police case, Pike choked his partner until she lost consciousness, made repeated threats that he was going to kill her, held a knife to her throat, threatened to kill himself, “hacked at his wrists” with a knife, hit her dog with a knife and swung a kitten against a fridge.
During an earlier application for bail, Det. Const. Gracey had outlined how it was around 5am on a Sunday morning when a police patrol car was flagged down by the complainant whose friend and two children were in the car with her.
The alleged victim reported to police how she had been in her home with her friend when there was a “loud bang at the front door” just before midnight, and the “heavily intoxicated defendant was then immediately in the living room….and behaving in a bizarre way.”
He asked his ex “to say that she loved him” and when she refused Pike allegedly “went berserk,” kicking a mirror to pieces as she screamed at him to get out of the house.
Pike allegedly “launched himself” at her and after pushing his forehead into hers and “growling” at her, he “bit down on her right cheek just below her eye,” leaving her marked and bruised.
“She reports being unable to move and feared the defendant was going to kill her,” said the detective, adding that when Pike did get off her, he allegedly “lifted a glass and threw it at her.”
Cameron Pike
News in 90 Seconds – Tuesday, September 9
The complainant ran to the kitchen but Pike followed her, kicking the door through before he rifled through the utensil drawer, “pulling out all the knives” and allegedly threatening the two women that he was “going to cut both their throats.”
The friend of Pike’s ex “ran for the front door but was caught by the defendant and dragged back into the living room by her neck, thrown on to the sofa and told not to move,” DC Gracey said
The court heard that at one point, Pike was standing with a knife in each hand and “kept shouting at her and saying if she didn’t say she loved him, he would cut his wrists.”
As he began slicing and cutting at himself Pike declared, “look what you are making me do” and that the two women “had killed him.”
When Pike’s ex told him she had never wanted to be with him, he grabbed her by the throat with both hands and with sufficient force that he “lifted her off the ground slightly,” he threw her onto the sofa where he got on top of her and began hauling out her hair extensions.
“She repeatedly shouted at him to get off her and leave but she was conscious not to make too much noise as her children were asleep upstairs,” the officer told the court.
Pike got off but started hacking at his wrists again and then he demanded that she drive him to playing fields in Bangor, warning her that on the way, “he would be holding a knife to her throat while she drove.”
She agreed and said “let’s go” but Pike “changed the narrative again and said he would only leave if she told him she didn’t want to be with him again.”
He allegedly choked her again, this time until she lost consciousness and when she came to, she fled to the kitchen and tried to escape out the back door but as Pike followed behind her, her dog “started barking at him.”
Pike allegedly threatened that he would kill the dog and as the “standard bully” jumped to protect its owner, Pike punched it while still holding the knife, causing a cut to the dog’s nose.
At another point in the terrifying incident Pike “turned his attention to her kitten which was sat in its litter tray in the kitchen,” lifting the kitten by the tail and flinging it against the fridge.
She told him the police were outside and “the defendant immediately made a break for the kitchen window and threw himself through it” but the court heard that was only after he held “a knife to the throat of the complainant and threatened, I’m going to kill you in your sleep.”
In court today, prosecuting counsel Adrian Higgins told Mr Justice Horner there was confirmation that Pike had been offered a job as a car valeter and that he would be working five days a week.
While Crown counsel revealed that the prospective employer himself has previous convictions for drug offences, the judge said they were from several years ago and that “he has gone straight, so to speak.”
“He is obviously someone who may well be more likely to give somebody a chance to take an opportunity,” Mr Justice Horner suggested.
Defence counsel Kelly Doherty told the court the “only issue” regarding the bail order related to Pike’s address, adding that she was able to confirm it as the Beersbridge Road.
As part of a raft of conditions, Mr Justice Horner told Pike that he must reside at that address and in addition, he is completely prohibited from alcohol, he is barred from entering Bangor and from contacting either of the complainants.
He will also be subject to a curfew with electronic tagging and he is compelled that once released, he has to seek help from his GP “regarding his addictions and mental health.”
Granting bail, Mr Justice Horner reiterated to Pike that any breach, will see him back in prison until his case concludes.