Celebrity auctioneer Charles Hanson left his wife “paralysed with fear” after a series of regular attacks throughout their “nightmare” marriage, a court has heard.
Rebecca Hanson said she was the victim of “14 or 15” incidents involving arguments or violence at the hands of her husband, who is accused of assaulting her every six months for a decade. The 46-year-old, who has appeared as an antiques expert on programmes including Bargain Hunt and Flog It! is said to have put her in a headlock while pregnant, and thrown a phone at her, the Mirror reports.
Giving evidence from behind a screen at Derby Crown Court, Mrs Hanson recalled an alleged incident in 2012, she claimed her husband violently lost his temper after she threw a box at him during a row. She said: “I was pregnant. I was in my dressing down, we were having an argument about something.
“I threw a tiny box which landed about two inches in front of him and he went for me. He just ran towards me straight away. I turned around to protect my stomach, my baby, and he got me around the throat.
“It was tight, with my head back. He was stood behind me. The crook of his elbow was in my throat. Realistically it lasted probably about four or five seconds but it felt like a minute. I was absolutely petrified, he was not trying to choke me, he was trying to control me. He was angry.
“I froze, paralysed with fear, he was shocked at what he had done, there was no explanation, I could not believe what he had done.”
Mrs Hanson kept a record of the dates and times of incidents, as well as taking photos of her injuries. She said her husband grabbed her by the arm during one row in 2014.
She recalled: “What shocked me was that when I looked at my arm, the fingerprints had come through the arms of a thick woolly jumper.”
When asked how it physically felt, she replied: “Really painful, it really hurt, Charles left the room and I phoned my dad in floods of tears.”
And asked why she did not contact the police, Mrs Hanson said: “When it starts, you hope it is going to end. He apologises, you think it is going to get better, you have a bit of hope.”
She told the jury their marriage became a “nightmare” during the Covid-19 lockdown, claiming, “He got angry a lot”, and once threatened to burn her with embers from their log fire.
She added: “I would say over the course of our marriage there were 14 or 15 things against me, all of the same pattern of misbehaviour. It started off less often at the beginning, every six months or so, but by the end it escalated more often, it definitely got worse.”
Hanson was arrested in June 2023 after police were called to their £1.5m home in Quarndon, Derbyshire. The auctioneer insisted to police he had never harmed his wife.
He denies controlling or coercive behaviour, actual bodily harm and assault by beating. The trial continues.