A LEFTWICH shopkeeper found not guilty of raping and threatening to kill a woman has been sentenced for attacking her with a hammer. 

Valutham Jeganathan, of Clifton Road, had been charged with 11 offences against the woman, including rape, unlawful wounding, multiple assaults, and threatening to kill her.

The 48-year-old was acquitted of all but one of these offences, assault causing actual bodily harm, by a jury at Chester Crown Court on August 15.

At this hearing he was also convicted of cruelty to a child, a charge he had denied.

While the jury felt the prosecution failed to prove the sexual offences against the woman, they accepted Jeganathan had assaulted her with a hammer.

This attack, which occurred in April 2017, left her with a cut to the head and bruising to her shoulder.

On the first day of his trial on Monday, August 6, prosecutor John Philpotts told the jury the Sri Lankan’s abusive behaviour towards his victim was at its worst ‘when he was drunk, which was often’.

When Jeganathan was arrested and interviewed, he ‘flatly and emphatically’ denied all allegations, Mr Philpotts added.

He pleaded not guilty to all offences at Cheshire Magistrates' Court on August 29, 2023, and the case was sent to crown court for trial. 

After the verdict, Jeganathan was bailed to return for sentencing on Tuesday, September 24.

His Honour Judge Simon Berkson handed him a 27-month prison sentence, suspended for three years, and ordered him to do 250 hours unpaid work within 12 months.

He was also made to pay £500 prosecution costs, and a £100 victim surcharge.

Judge Berkson also made a restraining order, banning him from contacting the woman, and going within 100 metres of a specified address in Northwich.