“Family violence is a scourge on the community and must be addressed.”
Those were the words of a magistrate as she sentenced a Shepparton man for an assault on his de facto partner.
The 39-year-old man pleaded guilty in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court to unlawful assault.
The court heard the man came home after a night out drinking and grabbed his partner of two and a half years as she lay in bed one night in mid-August 16 last year.
The woman walked to the nursery to collect some of their 14-week-old son’s belongings, but while in the room, the man grabbed the woman and threw her around the room.
He also broke the door handle while trying to get back into the room after he had closed the door.
The woman picked up the baby when he woke, but handed the child to the man when he asked to hold him, as she didn’t want herself or the child to get hurt.
The man then became more aggressive before punching a hole in the wall.
After the man told the woman she would never see him or their baby again, the woman contacted his family to come and help her.
The man was on bail at the time for what the prosecutor described as “similar offending” against his ex-wife, and when he appeared on court on this occasion it was from jail where he was serving a County Court sentence for that matter.
He was sentenced in the County Court in March for recklessly causing injury and aggravated burglary for an attack on his ex-wife in January 2021.
The assault against his de facto partner occurred two and a half years after the assault against his ex-wife.
In court in the case against his de facto partner, the man’s solicitor Steve Parker said that when his client was called to give evidence in the matter involving his ex-wife, he “gave evidence of his views of his conduct” and “took full responsibility”.
In sentencing the man, magistrate Victoria Campbell noted that when a baby was young it was a stressful time for a family.
However, she said the man’s offending was a “very serious and concerning example of family violence”.
The man was sentenced to 10 weeks in prison, with the seven days he had already served in pre-sentence detention on this matter counted as time already served.