Return of the Living Dead(ish)

Once again, Sunderland bus-stop Lothario Keith MacDonald has put in an appearance in the headlines;

A love rat alleged to have fathered 11 children by 10 different women assaulted his former partner and their three-year-old child in a spat over sunglasses.

It's quite a surprise to find them still in contact, given that he first came to our attention when he sent her a text purporting to give details of his death.

This macabre attempt to evade child support payment for  their daughter and their imminent second child backfired spectacularly when it was followed a few weeks later by an automatic e-mail sent from his new Blackberry.

This time, according to her version of events, he was making a brief visit to drop off some money - unlikely as it sounds - and, in the course of a rather confused-sounding dispute involving sunglasses and a fridge, he assaulted her and flung open the fridge door, which hit the child on the head.

His version, meanwhile, is that they were back together and 'living as man and wife'; it would appear his opinion of his own appeal has not changed in the intervening years;

"He was leaving and she did not want him to leave and that was the reason for the struggle."

Frankly, I don't envy the jury tasked with sorting out which of these unlikely scenarios is true; either the man who faked his own death to avoid paying child support was voluntarily parting with some of his state-supplied drinking vouchers or this unfortunate woman was foolish enough to want him back even after he deserted her mid-pregnancy (for another woman also carrying his child), then pretended to be dead.

MacDonald initially pleaded 'not guilty' to two charges of assault, even though, according to his publicly-funded defence counsel,

He accepts there was a struggle and, in the course of that struggle, he caused the injuries she stated in her account, with the possible exception of the cut on her right hand, which he does not accept he caused initially. 

These undisputed injuries suggest the struggle was a serious one, which, given that he has a proven history of violence against women, is surely grave cause for concern, as is his seeming lack of care in the presence of his young child. Extend this to all the other women and children to whom he has access and it becomes clear that anger management alone will not be enough.

Nothing about this case quite adds up, in keeping with the chaotic lifestyle of MacDonald and the mothers of his children - an ambiguity that may well have much to do with benefit rules and regulations. However, as past accounts show, in this case there is one way to be sure whether these two were actually cohabiting, a way that incidentally demonstrates just how immature he is.

For MacDonald, wherever he lays his X-box, that's his home.