January 2023 Baby-faced domestic abuser who wouldn’t let partner use toilet jailed as victim vows to ‘never forgive’ A serial domestic abuser who wouldn’t let his girlfriend go to the bathroom alone and threatened to kill her family has been locked up for more than three years. Luke Mackie, 21, subjected Nicole Connor, 23, to almost one year of terrifying physical attacks and extreme coercive control – including choking her and removing her phone and car keys. He would refuse to let her use the bathroom alone, and hurled her to the floor during violent outbursts. When NHS nurse Nicole found the courage to end the relationship, Mackie followed her to work and her home, and hounded her with phone calls and abusive text messages Mackie pleaded guilty to 12 charges at Dundee Sheriff Court in October including the coercive control of Nicole between October 1 2020 and July 31 2021. He also pled guilty to four charges against a later girlfriend, four other assaults, including two attacks on police officers, two counts of threatening behaviour and possessing cocaine. Branding his behaviour “truly harrowing”, Sheriff Gregor Murray sentenced him to 40 months imprisonment. Upon his release he will be subjected to supervision for 12 months, and has been ordered not to approach or contact Nicole or his other victim for three years. Nicole began a relationship with Mackie in October 2020 but it became violent within weeks. She told how he would turn his nasty side on “like a switch” then carry on as if nothing had happened. On one occasion, Nicole says he throttled her in the kitchen before taking a shower, as if nothing happened After the relationship ended he continued to harass her for two months. In one sinister message, he warned police might become involved, writing: “Better hope when I get in touch with the police it’s not your name that they’re speaking about – not be a good day.” Mackie went on to meet another woman who he subjected to a fresh campaign of terror. He struck the second woman on the head and body at a taxi rank in Dundee in January 2022, then attacked two police officers who struggled with him. A month later, at a Premier Inn hotel in Edinburgh, he brandished a boiled kettle at his partner, pointed a glass bottle at her neck and threw her onto a bed before spitting in her face and refusing to let her leave. He then spent a taxi journey to Waverley station calling her names, hurled her phone on a tramline and told her not to board a train before striking her in the face and kicking over her suitcase. Mackie showed no emotion as he was sentenced at Dundee Sheriff Court on December 14, backdated to his remand date of February 28. He winked at his parents as he was led out of the dock.