“I’ve cried a million tears in silence trying to understand what I did to deserve such brutality.”
Those were the words of a Mooroopna woman whose former partner has been jailed for 12 and a half years for imprisoning her in her own home before assaulting and raping her.
The words were in the woman’s victim impact statement read aloud in the County Court, and reiterated by the judge during sentencing.
The woman’s former partner, a 39-year-old Shepparton man, 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 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 only recently returned to court for him to be sentenced by a different judge, as the trial judge has since retired.
During his attack on the woman in her home 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 multiple times.
He then held a boning knife to her throat.
He later raped the woman.
The man also took the woman’s phone off her before the attack so she could not call for help and followed her when she went to the toilet so she could not escape.
The next morning the man insisted the woman use make-up to cover her injuries and told her to tell anyone who asked about them that she got in a fight in a bar, Judge Mullaly said.
In sentencing the man, Judge Gerard Mullaly described the attack as “appalling violence and intimidation of a previous intimate partner”.
“You subjected her to the most terrifying, frightening ordeal,” he said.
“Your dreadful resort to raping her shows you asserting domination and violence.”
The court heard that earlier in the day of the attack, the man messaged her on Facebook in what Judge Mullaly described as a “threatening and degrading” message saying he was on his way and the woman’s “new boyfriend” should come and save her.
The court also heard the man bombarded the woman with 1336 texts and 738 phone calls in the 15 days after the attack, asking her not to speak to the police about what had happened.
“These numbers are utterly astonishing, with well over 100 contacts a day,” Judge Mullaly said.
In the early hours of December 31, 2020, the man also went to the woman’s house again and slapped her.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the woman told how the man “stole something from me that I’ll never get back”.
She spoke of attending more than 70 family violence counselling sessions and that she “felt like the happiness has been sucked out of me”.
Judge Mullaly said the man’s violent offending came because he held a jealous view that the woman was not able to have new partners or friends, despite the woman telling him she didn’t know who he was talking about when he was asking her about another man.
“You treated her as a chattel, as though she was your exclusive property,” he said.
“This was an example of revenge or punishment rape.
“You did it to exert power over her.
“Rapes of this kind are evil.”
Judge Mullaly said the man had a history of similar offending, including assaults of women, and was previously jailed for reckless conduct endangering injury against another previous partner in 2020.
A psychologist report told of how the man’s childhood, where he witnessed family violence, had “desensitised” him.
“You are a high risk of domestic violence offending with dangerous and repeated violence against women,” Judge Mullaly said.
“Yet again this court is required to convict a man who has inflicted violent offending on his partner.
“Violence of this kind is alarmingly widespread and harmful. It is never justified.”
The man was sentenced to 12 years and six months in jail, and will have to serve nine years before becoming eligible for parole.
The one year, 11 months and 28 days the man has already spent in custody while he waited for the matter to finalise in court will count as time already served.
• GV Centre Against Sexual Assault provides free and confidential counselling, information, advocacy and support to people who have been affected by sexual assault. Call 1800 112 343 or visit gvcasa.com.au