NOT GUILTY: Respected Sound Pro Retains Good Name

Innocent: Neil Kavanagh

An audio expert has been cleared of assaulting his partner during a row over long-running building work at their £850,000 detached home.

Yesterday sound engineer Neil Kavanagh, 70, boss of Old Barn Audio, Eridge Green, Tunbridge Wells was found not guilty after a half-day trial.

He was cleared by Bexley Magistrates of assaulting 54 year-old Heather Naqvi at the address in Leafy Grove, Keston on August 23, last year.

His partner of eleven years claimed she was deliberately thrown into a wardrobe, leaving a visible injury on her back, but Kavanagh always insisted he was trying to calm her down.

The father-of-three told the trial the couple had been victims of a “sociopath” builder. “We were out of pocket by seventy thousand pounds.”

The subject came up again one evening. “Heather went ballistic. I did not want to argue and went to bed,” Kavanagh, who has since moved into a hotel, told the trial.

“She was yelling at me, my ears were ringing, calling me an effing liar. It was loud and I was half asleep, I was stunned.

“She was saying I was f***ing useless at business, that my business was falling around my ears when in fact it has tripled in  the last couple of years.

“I was just in my Y-fronts and placed the open palms of my hands on her shoulders. It was meant to be calming, but it did not work.”

Reminiscing on their relationship Manchester-native Kavanagh added: “When it was good it was ecstatic. I thought we would be together for life.

“She thrust her leg out and it made me collapse to one side and I got stuck in the carpet.

“My knee does not twist and I was going to fall, no doubt about it and I grabbed the shoulders of the fleece Heather was wearing, my fleece.

“It was instinctive. I was hanging onto Heather for support.

“There was a tussle. It was very quick and Heather spun out one hundred and eighty degrees and landed between her side of the bed and the wardrobe.

Wardrobe: Heather Naqvi

“She did fall heavily and I was worried she hurt herself.”

Earlier fashion boutique owner Ms Naqvi confirmed the couple were now in the middle of dividing up their assets and their relationship is over.

“The argument was about him gaslighting me about something he said and he said | must have been imagining it or misheard him,” she told the court from behind a screen.

“I was annoyed, fed up and he pretended to be asleep and dismissed me. I called him a: ‘Shifty f***ing liar.’

“We were just shouting at each other and he suddenly said: ‘Right. That’s it,’ and got out of bed and threw me towards the door.

“He grabbed me and threw me and I whacked the wardrobe. He grabbed the fleece I was wearing and was pulling it.

“I was kicking out at him. I kicked at his genital area, but I didn’t want to do him any damage.”

She claimed Kavanagh ripped her mobile phone out of her hand as she tried to call a friend and she eventually called the police 101 non-emergency number twelve days later to report the incident.

“I had a big red mark on my back, a welt from where I hit the wardrobe and pain in my neck like whiplash.”

Kavanagh claims she told him a week before the row they would split up when her son reached college age in two-and-a-half years time.

She agreed the building work had caused rows between them. “Due to Neil’s actions we have lost a huge amount of money.”

There were also other arguments. “The previous row was about him washing the toilet seat in the kitchen sink.”

The three magistrates announced they could not be sure an assault had occurred and dismissed the charge against Kavanagh, who retains his good character.