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Jul 04, 2023

Woman choked numerous times by abusive partner during repeated assaults

A man choked and assaulted his partner several times over five years, including locking her in a shipping container and a caravan, a court has heard. The 34-year-old man pleaded guilty in Shepparton

A man choked and assaulted his partner several times over five years, including locking her in a shipping container and a caravan, a court has heard.

The 34-year-old man pleaded guilty in Shepparton County Court to six counts of assault, intentionally causing injury, three counts of reckless conduct endangering serious injury, making a threat to kill, false imprisonment, two counts of using a carriage service to harass, criminal damage, and theft, as well as three summary charges.

The court heard the man committed family violence against his partner between June 2016 and March 2021.

Prosecutor Andrew Moore told the court about the assaults, with the first occurring only six weeks into their relationship, where the man grabbed his partner around the neck while driving and punched her.

On another occasion, in March 2019, he repeatedly assaulted the woman while refusing to let her out of a house, and mid that year he punched her while she was having a shower before dragging her on to a bed and repeatedly punching her.

In early 2020, he choked her before muffling her screams with a pillow over her face during an attack at a house in Moira Shire.

In late 2020 or early 2021, the man sent her text messages threatening to kill her if she had any other men around their son.

In January 2021, the man grabbed the woman by the throat and pushed her into a shipping container at the Moira Shire house before locking the door and smashing her face into a wall.

He refused to let her leave for 90 minutes.

The man “manhandled” the woman into the shipping container and would not let her leave for two hours in early February 2021.

During a frightening attack at a caravan in Numurkah the following month, the man strangled her for 10 seconds while holding her down on the bed before punching her in the face.

He chased her down and pulled her back inside when she tried to flee.

The following day he choked her until she could not breathe and punched her.

Over five days in late March 2021, the man texted what he thought was the woman’s phone number 141 times.

In a victim impact statement to the court, the woman said she feared she was no longer capable of having a relationship, had frequent nightmares and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

In a separate set of offences, the man was spotted by police driving at 144km/h on Drumanure Rd at Invergordon in an unregistered ute with false number plates early on May 12 last year.

He did burnouts at the intersection of Drumanure Rd and Labuan Rd before driving straight at the police car, only swerving at the last minute.

A police search of his house and a ute at the property found a shotgun that was stolen in November 2021, and shotgun ammunition.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of recklessly exposing emergency service workers to risk by driving, possessing a firearm while a prohibited person and unlicensed storage of ammunition in an insecure manner, as well as 13 summary charges including speeding between 35km/h and 45km/h over the speed limit, and failing to stop on police direction.

In sentencing, Judge Simon Moglia spoke of how the man started using drugs from age 20, while the defence counsel said his client was using methamphetamines during the entire relationship with the woman and it was a time of “relative chaos”.

He said that while the defence had told the court the man was now drug-free, nothing before the court could confirm this.

The man was sentenced to five years and six months in prison, with a non-parole period of three years and eight months.

The 602 days of pre-sentence detention will count as time already served.