The burns Justin Watt suffered during an argument with his girlfriend took the skin off his body and left lifelong scars, a jury heard this week.

Watt was injured in a June 25, 2012, fight with his then-girlfriend, Kelsey O’Gorman, who is charge with aggravated assault.

article continues below

This week, the jury saw graphic photos of Watt’s severe burns. Next week, they will be asked to decide whether O’Gorman deliberately burned him when she took a spaghetti pot full of boiling water off the stove and flung it at him, or whether she accidentally tipped the pot over, splashing him with the boiling water after she had burned her own hand.

O’Gorman, 25, is also facing three charges of assaulting Watt. But this most serious incident with the boiling water marked the end of their tumultuous relationship, prosecutor Clare Jennings told the jury as the case got underway in B.C. Supreme Court.

Several days after he was burned, Watt gave a statement to the Nanaimo RCMP.

The couple, who knew each other in high school and dated when they worked together at Shaw, moved from Nanaimo to Victoria in 2011 to allow O’Gorman to begin a master’s degree at the University of Victoria.

Watt testified that O’Gorman has a temper and lashes out. She assaulted him for the first time, kicking him and giving him a black eye, in the basement apartment they shared with her stepsister on Ash Road on July 25, 2011, he said.

O’Gorman also assaulted him in their second apartment on San Juan Road in February 2012, he said, batting him on the back of the head and choking him.

The third alleged assault took place in May 2012 at their Pandora Street apartment. Watt testified that O’Gorman kicked him in the stomach during another argument.

The incident with the pot of boiling water also took place at the Pandora apartment on June 25, 2012. Watt testified that they were having an argument in the kitchen.

O’Gorman was standing by the stove and he was at the sink, when she picked up a pot of boiling water and threw it at him.

Watt’s aunt, Allison Vollet, testified that she took him to a clinic the next day and saw the weeping burns on his body.

Crown witnesses Fallon Renshaw and Marc Tinney, who work with Watt, both testified they saw him at the office with a puckered or black eye.

On Thursday, O’Gorman testified they were both verbally aggressive, but that Watt was the one who was physically aggressive, pinning her down if she tried to leave during their arguments.

“He would grab me and push me on the bed, either holding my hands back or my head back with his knees on my arms,” she said.

On June 25, 2012, they had just returned home and were arguing again, O’Gorman testified. Watt grabbed her right arm and twisted it so hard she thought he’d broken her arm. She was icing her arm. Watt was at the sink, she recalled.

“Basically, we started arguing again,” O’Gorman testified. “He starts to get right in my face and put his hands up.”

The two of them were standing very close, and Watt had thrown her off balance a bit.

At that point, O’Gorman testified, she accidentally put her hand into the pot of boiling water and felt a burning pain.

“I remember sweeping my hand forward and hitting the edge of the pot and it tipping over.”

Justin was screaming, she said.

ldickson@timescolonist.com