In convicting Brent Gilbert on one count of intentionally causing serious injury, County Court judge Irene Lawson said it was “only by good fortune” the woman had not died as a result of the “terrifying” attack.

She said the young girl mistakenly believed her mother had been murdered for up to a week after the incident on September 11 last year.

“You stabbed the victim multiple times using knives when she was in her own home in a place where she was entitled to feel safe and secure,” she said.

“You inflicted severe and potentially life threatening injuries and left the victim bleeding profusely in an obviously injured condition. The whole event was terrifying for the victim and must have been also terrifying for her vulnerable young son and daughter.”

The court heard both children “had their childhood robbed of them” and now suffered from nightmares and other ongoing issues “as a consequence of being exposed to something that no child should ever have to see”.

Judge Lawson said the woman also experienced nightmares, flashbacks, severe migraines, memory loss, and back spasms as a result of her injuries and now worried about having almost died in front of her children.

“It causes her great upset that that would have been their last memory of their mother,” she said.

“She was suicidal for a time and physically it has been very difficult for her because of ongoing impairment of her lung function caused through the stab wounds.”

The court heard the stabbing occurred after Gilbert was asked to leave the victim’s house in the early hours of September 11, 2015. He then went home and woke his sleeping wife and told her “I need to speak to you, I think I’ve just killed someone”.

He was arrested the following day and admitted to stabbing the woman “because I felt like it, because I wanted to”.

Judge Lawson described Gilbert’s offending as “inexplicable”, saying he had “never provided a proper explanation as to why it was that you undertook this offending or what was your motive for this serious offending”.

“Insofar as remorse is concerned, I am unable to find that there is any real evidence of genuine remorse on your behalf,” she said.

Gilbert was sentenced to 10 years’ jail with a non-parole period of seven years.