A WOMAN who was on holiday with her partner at a holiday park near Penrith was subjected to an assault so violent she suffered brain injuries, a jury heard.

At Carlisle Crown Court, the woman gave her account of the alleged attack carried out by Liam Hardy just hours after the couple arrived at a lodge which is part of the Ullswater Heights complex near Penrith.

Hardy, 37, denies three offences: intentionally wounding the woman and causing her grievous bodily harm, an alternative charge of wounding, and affray.

In her evidence, the woman confirmed that at the time of the alleged assault in January last year, she had been the defendant’s partner for around eight weeks.

On their first night at the lodge, Hardy began drinking vodka at around 7pm. He finished the bottle and also drank lager, she said.

It was a after a row about a relative who was with the party being allegedly hit by the defendant that he became violent, she told the court. “He headbutted [the woman], in the face,” said prosecutor Andrew Evans as he opened the case.

“She ran to the bathroom as he began to throw furniture around. She heard smashing as she examined the damage to her face. She heard punches landing on the bathroom door." She heard a relative ask Hardy why he had smashed the TV.

When she returned to the living room, said Mr Evans, he began punching her to the head.

In her evidence, the woman said she experienced a “flash” as Hardy grabbed her by the neck and headbutted her. Blood was dripping from her nose, she said.

From the bathroom, the door of which she locked, she heard him smashing things. “He was punching the bathroom door,” said the woman.

She described leaving the bathroom and Hardy punching her to the right side of her head. She said: “I pushed past him; I just had to get out.”

The woman said the defendant flung her suitcase across the room, and as she lay on the bed covering her face, Hardy punched her five times to the head, on both sides. She told him she needed an ambulance but he told her she could not leave, she said.

The woman told the jury that Hardy took her phone and said he had “lost everything”. He armed himself with a knife, she said. When he briefly left the living room, she said, she ran for it, but he chased her from the lodge.

After hiding between two cars, she knocked on the door of a nearby lodge, where a couple came to the door and she “whispered ‘ring the police.” But, she said, Hardy appeared, and said he would kill anybody who called the police.

She returned to their lodge and locked herself in the bedroom. The police arrived later that evening.

Describing her injuries, the woman said she spent 11 days in hospital and suffered a “serious head injury", including two brain injuries and a broken nose, as well as a broken finger.

She also had two black eyes.

Cross examined by defence barrister Daniel Bramhall, the woman rejected the suggestion that it was she who had headbutted Hardy, or that she had been the first person to offer violence. “You were screaming and shouting at Liam,” said Mr Bramhall.

“I didn’t raise my voice once,” said the woman.

She also denied being aggressive towards Hardy or headbutting him in the face, saying: “I’ve never headbutted anybody in my life.” Mr Bramhall suggested the woman caused her own head injury by repeatedly headbutting the bed’s headboard.

Under further questioning from Mr Evans, the woman said of the defence claim that she had caused her own brain injury by headbutting the headboard: “It was a soft-padded headboard."

She said she was 5ft 3ins tall and Hardy was around 6ft 3ins tall.

“I don’t know how you’d expect me to reach,” she asked. Mr Evans asked the woman how her brain injuries were caused and she replied: “His punches.”

The defendant, of Dene Park, Durham, is expected to give his evidence today.