A Shepparton man found guilty of imprisoning his former partner in her house and raping her will have to wait until April to find out his sentence.
The 39-year-old was found guilty by a jury in Shepparton County Court in November of intentionally causing injury, two counts of assault, false imprisonment, rape and burglary.
He has pleaded guilty to persistent contravention of a family violence intervention order, two counts of contravening an order intending to cause harm or fear for safety, and using a carriage service to harass.
The matter has only recently returned to court for the prosecution and defence to argue what sentence he would receive and is now before a different judge as the trial judge has since retired.
Prosecutor Fraser Cameron told the court the man had previously been in a 17-month relationship with his victim, but it had ended.
He said the man had posted about or tagged the woman on Facebook 20 times between November 16 and December 7, 2020, despite a family violence intervention order that prohibited him from doing so.
Mr Cameron said the man attacked the woman at her Mooroopna house on December 18, 2020.
The man grabbed the woman’s head and hit it into the wall, choked her and hit her in the face, Mr Cameron said.
He then held a boning knife to her throat.
He later raped the woman.
Mr Cameron said the man also took the woman’s phone off her during the incident so she could not call for help.
He also followed her when she went to the toilet so she could not escape.
“She was too frightened to leave the house,” Mr Cameron said.
He said the woman was kept in the house for 11 hours but conceded that for some of that time, she slept on the couch “after passing out” after the rape.
Mr Cameron also told the court in the 15 days after the attack, the man called the woman 738 times and messaged her 1336 times.
He also went to her house in the early hours of December 30, 2020, and slapped her across the face before leaving.
In a victim impact statement read to the court by the prosecutor, the woman told how when she met the man he “had been so nice” but that the “relationship soon changed and he became violent”.
She said how she had been so scared of him that she had couch-surfed and slept in bus shelters and parks so he could not find her.
“I’m scared I’ll never be able to escape him,” she said.
The woman told how she still suffered from nightmares and panic attacks.
“I’ve cried a million tears in silence trying to understand what I did to deserve such brutality,” she said.
Mr Cameron said the man’s offending “fell at the higher end” of offending of its type as it had happened in the woman’s home, he had hit her multiple times over three hours and she had passed out after the rape.
The man’s defence counsel Susanna Locke said the assault — to which her client had pleaded not guilty — “was not prolonged”, and there was no evidence it had occurred over three hours.
She said five of the offences occurred on one evening on December 18, 2020, and then the pair had spent Christmas together before the December 30 offence.
However, Judge Gerard Mullaly argued that family violence matters often included periods where people involved reconciled before another incident.
Ms Locke said her client had anti-social personality traits and depression, and this would make prison harder for him.
She also asked for a parole period to be part of her client’s sentence as he would “need support in the community” when he was released.
Judge Mullaly will sentence the man in late April.