Spring Mountain grandad Sean Conrad Small faces Ipswich Court for strangling wife

A southeast Queensland man with a disturbing track record of strangling women was meant to have been deported years ago but “slipped under the radar” — leaving him free to attack again.

A grandad is on track for deportation after strangling his second wife since moving to Australia. Generic photo.

An Ipswich grandad is on track for deportation after strangling his second wife since moving to Australia.

A judge said at the man’s sentencing that he was “confused” why the man wasn’t deported after the first occasion seven years ago.

Spring Mountain resident Sean Conrad Small, 57, pleaded guilty today, April 4, to strangulation in a domestic setting and two counts of common assault (DV).

Crown prosecutor Alice Pinkerton told the Ipswich District Court that Small had strangled his wife for approximately 10 seconds on an unknown date in October 2022.

The court heard the couple had been arguing about Small’s alleged infidelity.

Small had squeezed his wife’s neck with one hand, cutting off her breathing temporarily.

Ms Pinkerton said the wife experienced pain, along with difficulty eating and swallowing, afterwards.

“This certainly would have been a harrowing experience for the victim,” Ms Pinkerton said.

Small had also assaulted the woman twice on February 22, 2023.

Ms Pinkerton said he had first grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her during an argument, before later pushing her on the couch.

“He was angry that the victim had gone through his phone and confronted him about messages that she had located,” Ms Pinkerton said.

The court heard the woman fled to the bathroom and called police.

When police arrived, Small had told them he had simply grabbed his wife’s shoulders to calm her down after she “launched at him”.

He spent the next 407 days in custody on remand waiting for his sentence.

Ms Pinkerton said Small had a relevant criminal history including an assault occasioning bodily harm conviction from when he was living in the UK.

Small had a former partner, two children, and several grandchildren still living in the UK, the court heard.

After he moved to Australia in 2011, he remarried and was convicted in 2017 of strangling and assaulting that wife.

He received 21 months jail for that offending, before he remarried once again.

The court heard he had split from his current wife and that she was seeking a divorce.

Defence barrister Cecelia Bernardin said her client would have completed domestic violence courses after the first strangulation conviction.

But Judge Benedict Power said those courses presumably included “don’t strangle your wife”.

“They plainly weren’t successful,” he said.

“He has strangled two wives.”

Ms Bernardin said her client wanted to stay in Australia if possible and move to the Northern Territory.

But she said it was likely he would be deported after his release.

Judge Power said he was “somewhat confused as to why he wasn’t deported the first time.”

“The law said he had to be deported... He could only not be deported if the minister exercised a positive digression in his favour,” Judge Power said.

“The other possibility of course is that no one noticed.”

Ms Bernardin said her client was never contacted by the Department of Immigration after he was released from custody after the last strangulation.

“It seems essentially he’s just slipped under the radar,” Ms Bernardin said.

Ms Pinkerton confirmed the department were aware of Small’s current proceedings and had requested an update on the outcome.

Ms Bernardin noted her client had an enlarged heart, which required daily medication and restricted his capacity to work.

Judge Power said choking offences were “extremely serious in all cases”, but he acknowledged there were comparable cases where more serious outcomes had occurred.

He sentenced Small to three years in jail, wholly suspended for three years after Small served 14 months in actual custody,

Small will be released on April 21, 2024, having spent 407 days in presentence custody.