A serial domestic abuser who terrorised three former partners in Fife has been given a six-year extended sentence.
Reece Morgan, 26, was last month found guilty by jury at Dunfermline Sheriff Court of engaging in a course of abusive behaviour against two women and behaving in a threatening or abusive manner to a third.
He appeared in the dock from custody for sentencing this week.
Sheriff Susan Duff jailed Morgan for four years – backdated to June 2022 when he was remanded – and ordered him to serve another two years on licence after his release.
The sheriff jailed him for a further 163 days for trying to escape two police officers while in handcuffs the day after being arrested for domestic assaults on one of his victims last June.
Sheriff Duff told him: “You have demonstrated little or no insight and very little in the way of remorse.
“You are a danger to women who enter relationships with you and you have a long history of criminal conduct.”
Grabbed throats
The sheriff said two of the abuse charges were particularly serious as they involved seizing both women by their throats and compressing them.
She pointed out one of the women said she “thought she was going to die”.
Morgan was convicted after trial of severely injuring this woman during a course of violence which included being punched and kicked on her head and body, seized and compressed by the throat and having her finger pulled backwards.
The offending took place at an address in Lochgelly between May 20 and June 17 2022.
Morgan was also found guilty of dragging another woman by her hair, seizing and compressing her throat and sending her threatening and abusive messages online.
The abuse took place between June 19 2020 and January 22 2021 at an address in Cowdenbeath and elsewhere.
Morgan demanded another woman bought him expensive items and pushed his head against hers at a property in Dunfermline and elsewhere, between December 3 and 15 2020.
He was convicted of shouting and swearing and making derogatory remarks towards all three of his victims.
Defence lawyer Chris Sneddon said his client has struggled to accept responsibility for parts of the charges he was convicted of.
Escape bid
Before his trial, Morgan admitted a charge of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by running away from two police officers on June 18 last year.
The court heard from prosecutor Laura McManus who said he tried to flee as he stepped out of a police van upon returning to Dunfermline police station from Victoria Hospital.
Ms McManus said Morgan had been taken for treatment the night before, after swallowing part of a plastic fork while in police custody.
He was admitted to the surgery ward during the night to have the object removed.
The fiscal said Morgan was caught at the city’s Carnegie Hall – on the other side of a busy roundabout from the police station – after two officers chased him on foot.
The court heard Morgan made his escape bid at 7.27am and was put back in the rear of a police vehicle at 7.30am.
Ms McManus said he had been arrested and taken into custody the night before for domestic assaults against one of his victims.
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