'Bully' secretly bugged ex's home for five years

A "bully" who secretly bugged his ex-partner's home after tormenting her with domestic abuse during their relationship has been jailed for two years and nine months.

Steven Gauci, 53, hid seven listening devices in electrical sockets in the woman's home having made multiple threats to kill her during a campaign of controlling behaviour, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

The woman said she had been living in "crippling" fear for years and felt "sick", paranoid and unsafe in her own home.

Gauci, of Pegswood in Northumberland, had admitted stalking but denied controlling and coercive behaviour, however jurors found him guilty of the second offence as well.

Gauci was 30 and the woman 19 when they first got together in 2002, Judge Robert Spragg said, with the couple going on to have several children.

They lived separately with Gauci "like a yoyo" with his visits and in effect carrying on the life of a single man while she raised their children and waited for him, the judge said.

When she asked if would move in with her, Gauci, who ran a plumbing and heating business, refused and told her no man would want to be with her, the court heard.

In February 2016, the relationship ended and the woman started dating someone else, the court was told.

When Gauci, of Front Street, found out, he became "very jealous" and threatened to shoot her and bury her in the garden, the judge said.

Gauci demanded the woman get back with him and then "forced" her to go to the supermarket where the other man worked and break up with him, the court heard.

The judge said that was done to humiliate the woman and Gauci went on to threaten the man.

Gauci and the woman resumed their relationship but his controlling behaviour become even worse, the court heard.

He would search through her mobile phone when she was asleep, demand she video call him when she went to meet family so he could see who was there and would fly into rages, the judge said.

The relationship ended again in 2020 and two years later a friend advised her to check her electrical sockets, the courts heard.

Police were called and discovered listening devices in her kitchen, bedroom, living room and dining room which had been hidden there in 2017, the judge said.

In a statement read to the court, Gauci's victim said she would "never be the same" and did not feel safe in her own home.

She said she lived in a "constant state of fear and stress" which was "crippling", adding it would always be an "open wound".

The woman said she felt "sick and shocked" about the bugging and was unable to trust anyone.

She said Gauci had "taken everything" from her and would "bully and control" her.

Judge Spragg said Gauci was "fuelled by jealousy" and sought to control every aspect of her life, culminating with the "sinister" planting of listening devices.

"It was a shocking invasion of her privacy," the judge said.

A restraining order banning Gauci from contacting the woman was made to last indefinitely.

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