Magistrate Bruce Cottrill has requested Adam McKenzie, 31, instead be assessed for a community corrections order.

McKenzie pleaded guilty in Bendigo Magistrates Court to recklessly causing injury, criminal damage, making threats to kill and contravening an intervention order.

Police prosecutor Leading Senior Constable Denis Farrell said McKenzie and his partner were drinking at their Flora Hill home on July 13 when a fight broke out after he locked her out of the house.

“The accused grabbed the victim in a headlock and twisted her neck so it felt like he was strangling her.

“He said: ‘If I can’t have you, no one will. I am going to kill you.’ He punched her a number of times to the eye, the ear and the back and headbutted her to the nose.”

Leading Senior Constable Farrell said McKenzie continued to assault the woman for 10 minutes until she escaped to a neighbour’s house.

He then started breaking the windows in the house.

Three days later an intervention order was issued preventing McKenzie from going within 200 metres of his estranged partner. But Leading Senior Constable Farrell said McKenzie was arrested on Thursday night after showing up drunk at the victim’s house.

The court heard McKenzie had prior convictions for breaching an intervention order concerning the same woman and also for recklessly causing injury.

McKenzie’s lawyer Kate Youngson said the pair had a volatile relationship with violence on both sides. She  said the victim had encouraged contact despite the intervention order. “We don’t have to be mathematicians to see they have been having relations during this period; she is pregnant and not very far along.”

Ms Youngson said a CCO would be best for her client because it could help address his alcohol problems.

But Leading Senior Constable Farrell said the “shocking assault” deserved a term of imprisonment.

Mr Cottrill adjourned the case to today so a CCO assessment could be carried out. ??