Bendigo man gets five months' prison for 'vile' abuse

The 31-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty in the Bendigo Magistrates’ Court to multiple breaches of a family violence intervention order after police withdrew a further charge of threatening to cause serious injury.

The court heard the man picked up a kitchen knife and held it to the woman’s throat during a verbal argument last year, before fleeing the house when police were called.

He then returned to the victim’s house this year, where he pushed her in the back, dragged her around by her hair and stood over her “yelling and screaming”.

When a police officer knocked on the window after hearing the noise, the man fled over a fence.

In a text message sent to the victim in February, police prosecutor Richard Epskamp said the man wrote: “I’m going to come and smash you, you dog”.

Leading Senior Constable Epskamp said the man admitted to contacting the victim when interviewed by police on March 4, but said “she started calling me first”.

The man’s solicitor, Peter Cutting, said his client suffered from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and depression for which he had not been properly medicated “in recent times” and instead used cannabis to self-medicate.

Mr Cutting said the man and his partner had both ignored the order during the period of offending and described the relationship as “toxic”.

Magistrate Patrick Southey described a previous CCO the man had been placed on for earlier offending against the same woman – which included a men’s behavourial change program – as a “complete failure”.

In sentencing the man to 12 months in prison, Mr Southey said he took into account his guilty plea, which “spared [the victim] the ordeal of having to give evidence about these awful events”.

Mr Southey described the man’s offending as “vile”, saying if not for the guilty plea he would have imposed a sentence of 18 months.

He said the sentence would send a message the offending was “very serious and will not be tolerated.”

“Everyone’s sick of violence against women,” he said. With time already served the man will be eligible for parole in less than five months.