Bloody Bedtime Bin Battle

Bin: Lee Momtahan

An Oxford businesswoman’s head was cut open by her fellow-graduate husband, when he repeatedly struck her with a disintegrating plastic bin during a bloody domestic row, a court heard today.

Mother-of-two Sarah Boada-Momtahan, 43, told the jury her computer scientist husband Lee Momtahan, 47, continued striking her as hard as he could as the bin was smashed into pieces.

“He put me in a headlock with his arm around my neck. This was after I had been thrown into the wall of my daughter’s bedroom,” said Sarah, the owner of ‘Sanders of Oxford’, a landmark antique print and map shop.

“I was thrown into the wall with such force it caused my jaw to slam shut and my teeth to fractures,” she told Inner London Crown Court.

Momtahan’s father and his wife were visiting the £850,000 family home in Tulsemere Road, West Dulwich on October 26, 2019 and they had all enjoyed a family meal at a local Chinese restaurant.

Afterwards, the guests heard the commotion upstairs and witnessed Oxford University graduate Momtahan using carpet cleaner to remove the blood.

Ironically Fine Arts graduate Sarah had intimate knowledge of the bin, telling the trial she academically studied that particular design over twenty years ago.

The row erupted at approximately 8.00pm during a dispute over getting their son and daughter to bed.

“He grabbed the bin and hit me over the head with it as hard as he could,’ she continued. “I just froze and he just kept hitting me.

“He was swinging the bin around and hitting my head repeatedly and the bin broke while he was hitting me with it. He kept hitting me with the broken bin.

“I felt the bin slice open the back of my head,” added Sarah, who left a trail of blood to the bathroom, where a towel was wrapped around her head.

She was taken to King’s College Hospital, where the wound was glued shut.

Momtahan’s lawyer Matthew Radstone asked Sarah: “You were the aggressor weren’t you? He says you punched him hard to the back of the head.”

She denied the claims, admitting she did not think she was still in love with her husband at the time and was investigating the possibility of divorce.

“You were blocking him from leaving weren’t you?” asked the lawyer. “There was never any chokehold or throwing you against the wall, was there?

“All he could do was strike you with the bin to get you off of him,” asked Mr. Radstone. “That’s not what happened,” replied Sarah.

Momtahan told the jury: “I felt a blow to the back of my head and thought she was punching me. She grabbed my left arm and started pulling.

“I instinctively resisted. I was totally freaked out, panicked and scared,”said the former IBM employee, who now heads a quantitative analysis department.

“I first saw the lampshade, but that was too heavy and I then saw the plastic bin, which was relatively lightweight and not that dangerous and managed to reach it.

“I picked it up and and just hit her to try and get her off me. I was not trying to harm her, just get her off me because my arm was being injured.

“I didn’t hit her very hard. The bin cracked and shattered into pieces and there was nothing left.

“I then saw blood and realised I was hitting her with a sharp object and I’m very sorry about that,” added an obviously emotional Momtahan.

“I then tried to clean up the mess.” 

Manchester-born Momtahan, of Balham Grove, Balham, who graduated with a degree in Maths and Computer Science, has pleaded not guilty to one count of causing actual bodily harm.

Trial continues…………….