Former soldier from East Lothian found guilty of strangling ex-partner during violent attack
Former soldier found guilty at Edinburgh trial
A former soldier pushed his ex-partner down a flight of stairs and strangled her during a brutal attack at her home.
Lamar Lewis, 36, launched the assault on former girlfriend Amy Mason after barging his way into the woman’s house in Tranent, East Lothian, last year.
Lewis, who served in the British Army for eight years, used one hand to choke Ms Mason and repeatedly struck her to the head and body during the violent incident.
Lewis also attacked the woman’s new boyfriend Christopher Henderson by repeatedly punching him to the head and attempting to stamp on him. The former squaddie claimed he had been “goaded” and “provoked” into lashing out.
Lewis stood trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court this week after pleading not guilty to three charges on indictment by entering the property uninvited and assaulting the couple on July 20 last year.
The trial heard Lewis, now working as an Uber driver, and Ms Mason had one child together after meeting in 2018 but their relationship had ended in May 2024.
The mother-of-three said she begun a new relationship with Mr Henderson and the pair were within her home when Lewis arrived at the property around midday.
She told the court she opened the front door and Lewis had burst into her home and angrily “stormed up the stairs” in a bid to confront her new partner.
Ms Mason said she ran after him but was “pushed down the stairs” and landed in a heap on the floor.
The woman told the jury: “He came back downstairs and pushed me back down and sat on top of me and put his hands around my throat.
“I was lying on my back and he was on top of me straddling me. He was strangling me. It all happened very quickly. He was holding me down and I couldn’t breathe.”
She told the court she was also struck to the head and body during the violent attack.
Mr Henderson attempted to intervene but he was also assaulted by Lewis, she told the court.
Ms Mason said Lewis was “stomping” on her partner and said “at one point I thought he was going to kill him”.
Lewis told the jury he was born in Jamaica and had come to the UK in 2007, and joined the British Army the following year, but had been medically discharged in 2016.
He said he arrived at Ms Mason’s home to take his child on a day out and had become annoyed when he spotted Mr Henderson in the property.
The former soldier, of Blindwells near Tranent in East Lothian, admitted attacking Mr Henderson by punching him to the body and throwing him to the floor but denied assaulting Ms Mason.
He claimed they had both fallen down the stairs and it was the woman who was hitting him and he had attempted to stop her.
But the jury failed to believe his version and returned guilty verdicts to both assaults and to a charge of entering the property and repeatedly uttering threats of violence and refusing to leave.
The jury deleted an allegation the assault on Ms Mason was to the danger to her life.
Sheriff Kenneth Campbell KC continued Lewis’s bail and deferred sentence for the preparation of reports to next month.