A domestic violence victim has revealed the heartbreaking words her toddler keeps saying after his father savagely beat her.
Jemma Palmer, 37, from Hull, said her boy has been walking around the house repeating the haunting words ever since she was brutally attacked by her ex-boyfriend.
She was set upon by Gareth Ralph after returning home from a day out with her then-partner and their son Archie, HullLive reports.
The mother was just about to put their boy to bed when Ralph made a comment about something a stranger had said to her on the bus.
Within seconds, he launched a horrifying assault and then left her for dead with a fractured jaw and two black eyes.
Archie was so terrified by the attack that he wet himself – and ever since he has been repeating the words 'daddy bashed mummy'.
Ralph, 34, appeared at Hull Crown Court on September 9 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison for his crimes – something which Jemma says is not good enough.
“It should have been five years at least,” she said.
“He left me for dead and he did it all in front of our son.
“Archie keeps walking around saying ‘daddy bashed mummy’, and I can’t sleep because of the mental impact.
“I have to live with this for the rest of my life, and yet he will be out in nine months. The justice system seriously needs changing.”
On the night of August 9, the family were on the bus home and heading towards Jemma's home in 22nd Avenue.
While on the bus, a man joked with Jemma asking if she wanted to get off the bus with him and “go for a few drinks”.
It was a comment that would ignite rage within Ralph that he would unleash within hours – on the person he was supposed to care for the most.
“I just laughed and said, ‘oh not tonight, maybe another night’, but I obviously didn’t mean it,” said Jemma, who also has a teenage daughter.
“I’m a jokey kind of person and it was just a comment on the bus.
“But when I was going to get Archie’s pyjamas, Ralph turned to me and said, ‘Why don’t you go s*** that guy from the bus’.
“I told him to stop being silly and he said to me, ‘You’ve never had a good beating before, have you?’.
“I said, ‘I beg your pardon’, and then he knocked me to the floor and put both of his hands around my neck and started pushing on my windpipe.
“All I could think was that he was going to kill me. I managed to grab the landline but he took it off me, removed the batteries and threw them on the floor.
“He told me I wasn’t going to call the police , and then started punching me in the face.”
Jemma suffered a fractured jaw, a cut lip, severe bruising and a haemorrhage in her eye, which she says opticians have told her has caused her eye sight to deteriorate.
After the vicious attack, Jemma says Ralph left the house and hid her mobile phone, leaving her to find the batteries he had cruelly thrown in order to call for help.
“Of course I wish more than anything my son hadn’t been there to see it all, but it’s because of him I came around,” she said.
“It was him screaming mummy at me that caused me to wake up and get help. I kept trying to hide my face so he wouldn’t see the injuries, but he had already wet himself because he was so scared.”
Ralph was found by police the following day, hiding at a relative’s house, and was remanded in custody until the hearing on September 9.
He was also handed a three-year restraining order against Jemma, stopping him from going near her or contacting her when he is released.
“It’s not good enough,” said Jemma. “How can anyone do that in front of their son?
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