No excuse for 'dehumanising' and 'violent rage' in Bendigo attack

A judge has told a Bendigo man who engaged in the "victim blaming" of his partner after an "outrageous assault" that the victim "did not deserve it at all".

County Court Judge George Georgiou was responding to the man's previous comments blaming the woman who was left bleeding on her bathroom floor after an attack and requires ongoing medical attention

The 32-year-old father of three appeared by videolink from custody in Dhurringile Prison before Judge George Georgiou in the County Court sitting in Bendigo on November 30, to appeal his original six-month prison sentence.

The man pleaded guilty earlier this year in the Magistrates' Court to charges including recklessly causing injury, two counts of common law assault, two counts of making a threat to kill, intentionally causing injury to the victim and cannabis possession.

At appeal, he had been in custody for 104 days not including the day he appeared.

The court heard of three periods of offending.

In March, 2020, Judge Georgiou told the court, the man had accused the victim of cheating on him because she accepted a friend request on Facebook.

The man then took her telephone, spat in her face, and when the victim tried to push him away he fell on the victim - headbutting her in the process and causing her chin to split.

Then in February 2023, the court heard the man was in the car with his three children and partner in a Bendigo suburb arguing.

Police later attended with child protection workers.

The court heard the man became "aggressive and confrontational" and told child protection workers he had "attack dogs" and they were not allowed inside his house. He has not been charged for these events.

In March 2023, the man wanted to speak about a relationship the victim allegedly had 14 years earlier which continued in an argument into the early hours of the next day, March 21.

In those early hours, he slapped her across the face and on the arms multiple times.

That evening, he continued to argue with her based on his belief that she had cheated on him in the past.

He then squeezed his thumb and fingers around her throat and told her, "I'm going to f***ing kill you".

The court heard she thought she was going to pass out and her ears were ringing.

Later, in the kitchen, she prepared a bottle while the man held their infant child.

He then slapped her three times to the face and said, "If I find anything little or small I'm going to kill you and the kids".

Then on March 22, the victim was applying makeup to her bruises when he told her "no one could see her looking like that".

She did not leave the house that day and he took her phone.

Later that evening he pulled her out from a chair, slapped her in the face, punched her with his fist, jabbed her in the stomach and chest and then kicked her left leg twice before she dropped to the ground.

Judge Georgiou told the court she believed he would kill her.

"She could not move or cry," the judge told the court.

The man then sent a Facebook message to one of the victim's male friends and told him some of the children "were his". No evidence was presented to the court that she had cheated at all.

The victim walked inside to her bathroom in extreme pain from the assault she had just sustained, and then noticed she had blood in her underwear and lay down on the bathroom floor.

The man called police and ambulance around an hour and a half later.

They noticed her face was swollen, both eyes were bruised, and her shoulders, arms, legs, neck, face and jaw were injured.

The man asked police if he could smoke some cannabis.

The woman was taken to the Bendigo Hospital emergency department and was later taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital. She sustained bruising, swelling, a broken sternum, and liver and pancreas injuries

He made comments the prosecutor and the judge both accepted were "victim blaming".

The court heard the victim said the man had "made her feel worthless and without any rights" and the "trauma had changed her forever".

Judge Georgiou said the assaults were sparked by "irrational jealousy" and said there was "absolutely no excuse" for a "dehumanising" and "violent rage".

"There is no place in our community for the type of conduct in which you engaged," he told the man.

He said this type of violence was too prevalent - especially perpetrated by males against females.

Taking into consideration the fact the man had "no previous convictions", had cooperated with police, had shown "immediate and genuine remorse" and had admitted to his offending, the man's prison time has been reduced to four months alongside two community corrections orders to be served in the community - with the longer of the two lasting for 20 months.

He will be released in around a fortnight.

For help, contact: