It was a dream wedding, a romantic ceremony, with the bride looking resplendent in white.
Yet it turned into an abject nightmare for the beautiful bride, 22-year-old Amy Dawson.
After a delightful ceremony in St. Mary’s Church in the village of West Rainton in County Durham, England, the reception for Dawson and her new husband, her long-term partner and father of her child, Gavin Golightly, in nearby Beamish Hall was full of love and laughter.
Then, at 12:55 a.m. the following morning, the newlyweds decided to retire to bed and Dawson asked Golightly to help take off her wedding dress.
Instead, he attacked her and she thought she was going to die.
“The defendant (Golightly) then tried to undo Ms. Dawson’s dress. She received a crochet (to undo the dress with), but the defendant then refused to undo his new wife’s dress,” prosecutor Sarah Traynor told Peterlee Magistrates Court, the Sunderland Echo