A 43-year-old man, from Katamatite, pleaded guilty in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court to two counts of making a threat to kill, two counts of unlawful assault, false imprisonment, intentionally destroying property, intentionally causing injury, two counts of choking a family member and two counts of driving while disqualified.
The court was told when the woman went to his house on December 23 last year he started throwing her around and smashed her phone when she said she would call the police.
He kept the woman at the house for four hours while intermittently assaulting her, including throwing her to the ground and kicking her in the eye.
The court heard that to stop the woman from escaping, the man drilled tek screws into every house window and door frame so they couldn’t be opened.
He also told the woman: “I’m going to kill you. You’re leaving in a body bag.”
The woman told police he hit her and repeatedly choked her until she passed out every time she tried to get out and run away.
On her last attempt to get out of the house she forced a sliding door open, and he pushed her head into the metal tracks of the sliding door and she lost consciousness.
After the assault, he sent several text messages to people telling them she had broken into his house and injured herself.
On December 24, the man got the woman to go on a motorbike ride with him where he purchased various items, including drugs and cigarettes.
He then drove recklessly at high speed with the intentions of scaring or intimidating her, before going home.
On Christmas Day, he again got her to go on a motorbike ride with him while he was drug- and alcohol-affected, riding into the bush near Burramine.
While they rode, he punched the woman in the head, before stopping and again strangling her, saying “no-one’s going to hear you”.
He then told her to get back on the motorbike, before pushing her off several times.
Then, once they were riding, he pushed her off while they were travelling at 40km/h.
She ran off into the bush and hid, eventually taking two hours to walk out after he left.
The court heard when police spoke to him the next day, he tried to act like he was the victim and that she had jumped off the back of his motorbike and run away, and made up a story that she was erratic, a drug user and had mental health issues.
He also told police he had barricaded the house before December 23 so the woman wouldn’t be able to “come and go as she pleased” while he was at work because things were being stolen.
The court was told on a separate occasion, in August 2024, the man threw the woman against cabinets in the kitchen, before throwing her on to concrete ground.
The court also heard, in April 2024, he threatened a different woman with a tomahawk after she would not give him a cigarette because she didn’t have any.
He then choked her and pushed her between wardrobe cupboards, before she was able to escape.
The man’s defence counsel told the court his client had a “not insignificant” criminal history before 2004 when he had a methamphetamines addiction, with most of his convictions drug-related.
However, he said the man then had 16 years of living offence-free as he had stopped using drugs in this time, before beginning to use drugs again.
While conceding it was violent offending that his client was charged with, the defence counsel said his client was on a community corrections order for other matters between January 2023 and July 2024 and had found the order to be “of great assistance”.
He also said his client had shown he had the capacity to remain abstinent from drugs.
The defence counsel said the man had also pleaded guilty to some charges that “would be difficult to prove” and asked for a discount on his sentence to “encourage people to be truthful”.
The man will be sentenced in April.
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