Matthew Hulls pleads not guilty to multiple domestic violence charges

A man will face trial on “horrific” domestic violence charges, after he allegedly threatened to inject his ex with a needle filled with chemicals and tried to waterboard her.

A man will stand trial on horrific domestic violence charges, including allegedly threatening to inject his ex with a “harsh chemical” and trying to waterboard her.

Matthew Wesley Hulls, 36, pleaded not guilty in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Thursday to a staggering amount of charges relating to “horrific acts” he allegedly perpetrated against his ex-girlfriend.

Mr Hulls’ counsel entered not guilty pleas on his behalf to multiple domestic violence charges, including choking and various assaults.

During Mr Hulls’ unsuccessful bail application in September, a police prosecutor told the court the allegations, from between September 2021 and May 2022, were “very serious”.

The court heard Mr Hulls had installed CCTV cameras in his house which police say he attempted to catch his ex cheating on him after he recorded her speaking to her former partner on the phone.

Matthew Hulls pleaded not guilty to all his domestic violence charges. NCA NewsWire/Dean Martin

Over the course of the next 10 months Mr Hulls allegedly choked the woman several times, causing her to lose consciousness, handcuffed her to his bed, threatened to kill her, and “made her beg for her life”.

The prosecutor alleged Mr Hulls took methamphetamine and was having “psychotic episodes” causing him to think the woman was sneaking men into the house.

The court heard Mr Hulls woke the sleeping woman in November 2021 by slapping her face before dragging her to an ensuite by the throat and kicking her.

While in the ensuite, the prosecutor alleged, he used one of the woman’s insulin needles to draw “harsh chemicals” from a brown bottle before holding it to her neck and delivering a threat.

“’If kicking it out of you doesn’t get you to tell the truth, let’s see what injecting you with this does’,” the prosecutor alleged Mr Hulls said.

The prosecutor then alleged Mr Hulls during the period of allegations threatened to smash the woman’s fingers with a hammer, attempted to waterboard her in his garage and locked her in a large birdcage after threatening her with an axe.

The court heard there was a witness to some of the allegations who was also the alleged victim in other family violence related charges being faced by Mr Hulls.

That witness had alleged to police she had seen Hulls break his ex’s insulin pump, choked her while holding her against a wall, “shaken (her) like a ragdoll”, threatened her with a sledgehammer, stabbed her with a knife and bitten her fingers.

As the allegations were being read Mr Hulls became irate yelling “just because she said it doesn’t mean it’s true … this is f***ing bulls***”.

Vanessa Cream, for Mr Hulls, highlighted during the bail application there was a lack of physical evidence, delay in the allegations and “collusion” between the ex and the witness.

“(The witness) apparently attended the house and on one occasion Hulls engages in this savage attack on the victim whereby the witness is there and sees him waterboarding her and assaulting her very viciously,” she said.

“It almost beggars belief that these horrific acts could be perpetrated while another person is present.”

On Thursday, Magistrate Simon Smart committed Mr Hulls, of Elizabeth Grove, to the District Court for arraignment in November.