Bargain Hunt star Charles Hanson put his wife in a headlock during a 10-year campaign of violence, a court heard.

The 46-year-old, who is 6ft tall and weighs almost 16 stone, attacked 5ft 5ins Rebecca Hanson, leaving her ‘scared and shocked’, jurors were told.

On another occasion he allegedly grabbed her arm ‘so hard that it left three fingertip bruises’ causing her to cry, and threatened to divorce her during a row over their kitchen layout, Derby Crown Court heard on Monday.

In text messages between the couple read in court Mr Hanson admitted having a bad temper and pledged to go an ‘anger management course’ after his wife said she wanted to leave.

Hanson, who runs an auction house in Etwall, Derbyshire, and is a regular on daytime shows Bargain Hunt, Antiques Road Trip and Flog It!, is on trial accused of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and controlling or coercive behaviour between May 2015 and June 2023.

The auctioneer, who appeared in the dock in a suit and emerald green tie, has denied the charges.

Opening the case against him on Monday, prosecutor Stephen Kemp said the couple, who married in 2010, were initially happy but as time went on ‘things began to change and Mr Hanson began, on occasion, to use violence against his wife’.

He said the first incident took place in 2012 and continued for around 10 years, when he would be violent towards her ‘approximately every 6 months or so’.

Bargain Hunt star Charles Hanson arrives at Derby Crown Court in the rain this morning

Bargain Hunt’s Charles Hanson and his wife Rebecca at home in Derbyshire (file picture)

TV personality Charles Hanson has appeared on Bargain Hunt, Flog It! and Antiques Road Trip 

He said Rebacca Hanson confided from time to time in her own mother and the defendant’s mother, Gillian Hanson about what had happened. 

Mr Kemp said: ‘The violence was never such that she ever felt that she needed to seek medical attention: she is not alleging she ever suffered any broken bones or anything as serious as that. 

Rather, it would usually take the form of Mr Hanson grabbing hold of her and doing so with sufficient force so as to often leave marks on her.’

Mr Kemp said in addition to specific occasions when Mr Hanson assaulted is wife, his ‘behaviour was such that it amounted to controlling and coercive behaviour’ which had a serious effect on her because it caused her to fear, on a number of occasions, that Mr Hanson would use violence against her.

‘The prosecution say that Mr Hanson knew or, at the very least he ought to have known, that his behaviour towards his wife would have had that effect on her,’ he said.

Mr Kemp said jurors would hear evidence from Mrs Hanson. He said: ‘You will see, when she gives evidence that she is a small woman, only about five feet five inches tall and not much over eight stone in weight. 

By contrast Mr Hanson as you will see, if you haven’t already, is over 6 feet tall and not quite 16 stone.’

Describing the first incident, Mr Kemp said the couple had been arguing in their kitchen at home, when Mrs Hanson threw an empty box on the floor, prompting Mr Hanson to run towards her, put his arm around her neck and then put her into a headlock.

When he was first charged, Hanson was released on bail with conditions not to go to the family home in Quarndon or to contact his wife 

He is alleged to have held his arm around her neck, under her chin from behind her, for a few seconds before letting go. When she spoke to him afterwards, he told her he felt he had to restrain her.

Mr Kemp said: ‘That is not accepted by either Rebecca Hanson or the Prosecution…there was no need to restrain her at all, and certainly not by means of a headlock.’

He said it was the first of many occasions when Mr Hanson would ‘grab his wife…in anger’.

In 2015, he is said to have grabbed her so hard that it left a bruise, even though she was wearing a thick woolly jumper.

Mr Kemp said she was too scared to call the police but did tell her father and took a photograph of the injury to her arm shortly after and another a few days later when the bruising had come out.

Jurors were told that on March 24, 2020 – the second day of the first Covid lockdown – Mr Hanson was in a ‘bad mood’ and threw a landline telephone at his wife during an argument, hitting her leg.

Mr Kemp said the same day, Mrs Hanson sent a message to her mother Jacqueline Ludlum saying: ‘He’s just thrown the phone at me and it’s hit me on the leg. He’s yelling he will divorce me, don’t call.’

The day earlier, she had sent a message to her mother which read: ‘Just to let you know that Charles is being pretty nasty to me at the moment.’

Bargain Hunt star Charles Hanson holds an umbrella as he arrives at Derby Crown Court today 

The Bargain Hunt star faces charges of assault and coercive behaviour against his wife

In May 2020, a couple of months into the first Covid lockdown, Mr Hanson is said to have been filming his wife on his mobile phone when she was shouting. When she tried to grab his phone, he allegedly scratched her wrist.

The court heard that by April 2021, Mrs Hanson started to write down the dates of various incidents.

He is accused of grabbing her shoulder during an argument about the lay out of the kitchen, leaving a red mark, in May 2022.

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Bargain Hunt star Charles Hanson arrives at court to face trial over ‘assaulting his wife at home’

In December 2022, during a trip to Lapland, he is accused of holding her wrist tightly. He is also accused of pushing her after she swore at him at home. Mr Kemp said it was only when she threatened to call police that he walked away.

On the day of that incident, in May 2023, she sent him a message saying: ‘I shouldn’t be scared of my husband, they are meant to protect you not hurt you.’ 

He replied saying: ‘I don’t know what to say…We both feel lousy. I came into our bedroom and I prodded you and then pushed you back. I was angry because you can use such awful language.’

On the May 11 2023, Mr Hanson sent his wife a message saying: ‘Sorry. I just don’t want us to break up,’ to which she replied: ‘Then don’t chuck your wife around.’ Mr Hanson said: ‘I won’t ever again.’

The court Mrs Hanson then ‘reached the stage where she felt she had to leave Mr Hanson’ and told his mother, Gillian Hanson, who suggested that they go to marriage counselling.

They visited a counsellor at Relate and soon after police became involved. In May 2023, he sent his wife a message asking her for a chance to show that he is a good man. She replied: ‘If you think your behaviour is a good man you are wrong.’

In another message in June 2023 he said he had a ‘bad temper’. He added: ‘It is completely my fault and I have let myself down. You can tell the counsellor this and maybe I need to go to an anger management course.’

He was arrested at his £1.5million home in Quarndon, near Derby. in June 2023. During a police interview he accepted that at times he raised his voice but denied ever putting her into a headlock. 

He said he had never caused her any injury and he denied having grabbed, poked or squeezed her.

Mr Hanson met his wife, a diagnostic radiographer, through friends in 2008 and and wed two years later in a traditional service at All Saints’ Church in Mackworth, Derby, in front of 150 guests.

The case continues.