Man kills pregnant girlfriend's baby by punching her in stomach as he resented raising 'another man's child'

A Gillingham man has been jailed after he killed his girlfriend's unborn baby by punching her in the stomach because he did not want to raise another man's child.

The accused, Asa Davison, was found guilty of child destruction, inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent (GBH), actual bodily harm (ABH) and perverting the course of justice following a trial at Bournemouth Crown Court in November last year. He represented himself at his sentencing hearing on Thursday after having dismissed his defence counsel, reports Mail Online.

Before his sentencing, the 35-year-old told the court that he was a "peaceful and kind person" and that he only sought to help and support the victim. He said that he had offered the woman a place to stay as he disliked the way she was being treated by her then-partner, after which they became romantically involved.

The woman later found that she was pregnant with her ex-partner's child. Davison continued to stay in a relationship with her despite the news, but attacked her when she was seven months pregnant. Judge Johannah Cutts rejected Davison's defence during the trial and said he would serve a minimum of 12 years behind bars because of his "violent" and "manipulative" personality. The judge said that these character traits make him a danger to society, particularly to his future partners.

The judge told him, "You were no knight on a white charger. You are a controlling man who is quick to anger and violence, as she discovered at her cost." Referring to a CCTV footage from May 29, 2020 that showed the heavily pregnant woman running away from the culprit at Gillingham town centre, and him looking for her on his bicycle and following her to a block of flats in the town, the judge said, "You followed her there, not, I find, to make sure she was all right but to punish her."

"In all probability it was in the stairwell of those flats that you assaulted her and she was later found with swelling to her forehead, bruising to her upper arms, a fracture to her eye socket and fractures to her nasal bone. But it was not only her that you hurt. There was another victim of your violent and callous offending. Bruising was found to her pregnant abdomen in the shape of a fist. Her baby died as a result," the judge stated.