A husband who denied wounding his wife and trying to strangle her in one of the worst domestic violence cases a judge has heard has been unanimously convicted by a jury.

Judge James O’Mahony told Kenzar Arnold, 41, that it was perfectly clear to him that he was an appalling bully.

“This has been the most harrowing and distressing evidence I for one have heard,” Judge O’Mahony told Arnold. “I wondered if this was really England in the 21 century.”

He said Arnold had shown extreme violence and cruelty.

Arnold, of Bennetts Avenue, West Kingsdown, had denied three assaults on his wife Dawn causing her actual harm, one charge of wounding her and one of inflicting grievous harm. The assaults happened between January 1993 and March 2009.

He also denied dangerous driving on October 3, 2014 and was found guilty of that.

During the trial at Canterbury Crown Court this week, the jury heard how Arnold rammed his wife’s car in London Road, Larkfield and tried to run her off the road after she found out he was seeing another woman.

At the time, Arnold and his wife were not living together but were still married and having a relationship.

Piers Reed, prosecuting, said the car ramming was the culmination of a catalogue of brutal assaults by Arnold on his wife.

"This has been the most harrowing and distressing evidence I for one have heard. I wondered if this was really England in the 21 century" - Judge James O'Mahony

These included kicking her, punching her in the eye and causing a serious injury and trying to strangle her.

Mr Reed told the jury that the couple married in September 1993 and remained in a relationship until 2011 when Arnold moved out. But they saw each other from time to time and continued having sex.

Not long after they married Arnold became extremely jealous and would not allow his wife to visit her family, Mr Reed said.

“He was moody and prone to outbursts of temper and was violent towards his wife,” he added.

“His behaviour was fuelled by drink. Each time his wife tried to go out on her own Arnold’s mother and father, who lived next door, would tell him. He would come back and assault his wife.”

Mr Reed said on one occasion Arnold hit his wife so hard that he broke the bone beneath her eye and she had to have reconstructive surgery. She was told by him to say she had slipped in the bathroom.

Another time, when she visited her mother - which she was forbidden to do by Arnold - he punched and kicked her. He also punched her in the eye when he found out from his mother that she had bought a game for her children just days before she gave birth.

Arnold also kicked his wife, breaking her wrist when she fell, and another time grabbed her by the throat and tried to strangle her. Mrs Arnold turned blue and lost consciousness, Mr Reed said.

She went to a refuge but returned home after Arnold told her it wouldn’t happen again. The police also got involved after the attempted strangling but Mr Reed told the jury: “When push came to shove she would not give evidence against him, either because she was too frightened or because she believed him.”

Mr Reed said after the ramming incident, when Arnold was arrested, he denied assaulting his wife and said the injuries were all caused by accidents. He also denied being the driver of the car.

Earlier this week, Mrs Arnold told the court of the day her husband chased her around their garden with a crowbar and hit her with it.

Arnold had asked his wife to help him get some car doors out of a shed and she told the jury: “They were heavy and one was dropped and damaged.

“He chased me around with a crowbar and hit me with it on my body and arms. It was very painful and I was frightened. There was no one to help me.”

Mrs Arnold told the court her husband had hit her in the eye, causing serious damage, and she’d also broken her wrist when he kicked her and she fell over. He’d also tried strangling her.

"He chased me around with a crowbar and hit me with it on my body and arms. It was very painful and I was frightened. There was no one to help me" - Mrs Arnold

Cross examined by Andrew Hill, defending, Mrs Arnold denied challenging her husband about seeing other women.

“I trusted him 100% and would never have challenged him because I knew the consequences of that,” she told the court.

Mrs Arnold said that in October last year she found out he had been seeing someone else.

“I asked him why he kept calling me when he was with someone else,” she said. “I went to see this woman and asked her to tell Ken to stay away from me because I had had enough of him. I rang him and said I did not want anything more to do with him.”

Mrs Arnold said she drove off after this meeting with the woman and saw Arnold parked on a path nearby.

“He started driving behind me and he was yelling and screaming. He was driving erratically and pushing my bumper. He followed me through a bus lane and then drove off.”

Giving evidence yesterday, Arnold told the jury that he was not responsible for any of the injuries suffered by Mrs Arnold, and said she had made up all the allegations.

Arnold said his wife broke her wrist not because he had kicked her but because she fell over. “She was wearing a little short skirt and these silly high heels and couldn’t walk properly and she fell over,” he told the jury.

He said he did not kick his wife and told the court that Mrs Arnold became jealous if he spoke to a woman, even those he had known for years. He also denied trying to strangle her.

“On that occasion we had words and it got a bit heated,” he said. “I might have pushed her, she might have pushed me, but I did not strangle her until she was blue in the face.”

Referring to a serious eye injury his wife said she received when her husband hit her, Arnold said it happened when his wife was standing on the edge of the bath hanging curtains and slipped and fell.

Asked by Piers Reed, prosecuting, why such serious allegations had been made against him, Arnold said he had no idea.

“Throughout our marriage I have been accused of seeing other women,” he said. “There’s been lots of jealousy – that’s how it was.”

He denied using domestic violence against Mrs Arnold throughout their marriage. “Of course it isn’t true,” he told the jury.

Adjourning sentence for four weeks for reports, Judge O’Mahony told Arnold he would be facing a long sentence of imprisonment.

And he praised the officer in the case for her thorough investigation and told her: “You have a commendation from me.”

Arnold was remanded in custody.

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