![Man deserved years, not months, for choking Man deserved years, not months, for choking](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/39DXPJ6bfYBT8JmDyHFbVdB/4acf90c4-0737-4e38-8965-8a35c2cafc8e.JPG/r0_315_4875_3057_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
A COUNTY Court judge says a central Victorian man who choked his former girlfriend three times should have been sent to jail for years, rather than months.
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But the judge could not extend his jail term because his appeal against another part of the sentence was abandoned.
The 29-year-old, who has not been identified to protect the victim’s identity, was sentenced in the Bendigo Magistrates’ Court earlier this year to three months’ jail for the assaults on his girlfriend, and six months for not complying with sex offender register conditions.
His appeal against the six month term was heard in the Bendigo County Court on Thursday.
The court heard the man choked the woman three times during two separate incidents in Bendigo last year.
The woman was asleep with her phone in her hand out of fear of the man, who she had tried to break up with earlier in the day.
The man broke into her house through a window and began choking her and struck her to the face, before dragging her along the floor into the kitchen. He attempted to rip out an extension cord, but failed.
The second incident occurred at the man’s workplace after they recently separated. He became angry at text messages on her phone, and started choking her.
When she escaped, he started choking her for a second time with his “thumb pushing on the middle of her throat”.
The court was told the woman “thought she was going to die”.
The man also failed to tell police he was living with a young child with his new girlfriend. The man is on the sex offenders register for life for multiple counts of sexual penetration of a child under 16 and two counts of indecent acts with a child under 16.
He was jailed for six years for the crimes, which involved girls as young as 11.
The man was also jailed for choking and threatening to kill his teenage ex-girlfriend.
Judge Jane Patrick said the sentence from the Bendigo Magistrates’ Court was far too lenient.
“Frankly, the three months is way too low, way too low,” she said.
“You can imagine what someone who came to this court with that sort of situation would get. You’d be more likely to get years, rather than months.
“You’d be likely to get at least 18 months.
“You can say he’s only really appealing the six months, but they are both before me.”
The man’s defence counsel abandoned the appeal.
He has served 134 days in custody and will be released from jail in just over one month.