‘I’m going to jump all over your guts and kill you’: Man’s threat to pregnant Rockhampton woman

*WARNING DISTRESSING CONTENT* A woman who feared a man would carry out a threat to kill hit his leg with an iron bar. The man then punched the woman to the face and head, causing her to fall to the ground. Here’s what happened in court.

A man with an ‘appalling’ domestic violence history will be released from prison in May.

Details of the harrowing plight of a Rockhampton mother, who was subjected to ongoing domestic violence offences, including a horrific physical assault, have been heard in court.

A 29-year-old male offender pleaded guilty in Rockhampton Magistrates Court on February 4 to 12 domestic violence offences - being assault occasioning bodily harm, stealing and 10 breaches of a protection order.

The court heard that the protection order involved the man and a woman, plus several of their children.

During one of the offences, the man phoned the woman from a private number and he was angry and agitated.

The man told the woman that if she didn’t go home, he was going to go to her house and “smash up the place”.

The man further stated that he was “going to urinate everywhere inside”.

On another occasion, the man threw a rod through a window of the woman’s residence while she and the children were inside.

The stealing offence related to the man attending one of the children’s birthday parties and stealing a mobile phone that the woman had given to the child as a present.

The man ran from the party location in Rockhampton when police were called.

He subsequently used the stolen phone to commit domestic violence offences against the woman, including sending her more than 40 messages and attempting to call her more than 15 times.

The woman refused to answer any of the calls and the man sent abusive text messages including the words “you dead”.

In another incident, in December last year which resulted in the AOBH charge, the man stayed the night at the woman’s residence in Rockhampton.

The woman asked the man to return the mobile phone that he had taken and the pair got into a verbal argument about this and other relationship issues.

The verbal argument escalated to physical violence.

After the woman told the man that she was pregnant to another person, the man became angry and said words to the effect of: “I’m going to jump all over your guts and kill you”.

The woman feared the man and believed he would carry out the threat, so she hit his leg with an iron bar.

She asked him to leave because she was scared, but he refused to.

The woman ran towards the man and struck him to the body. The man then punched the woman to the face and head, causing her to fall to the ground with blood coming from her head.

The man then fled the scene and Triple Zero was called.

When police arrived, they saw the woman on her back on the front balcony.

She had bruising around her right eye, a cut to her lip, and bleeding coming from a laceration to her forehead.

She was treated for her injuries at the house and then taken to hospital.

In court, the prosecution said the man had a 12-page criminal history.

“The prosecution’s view is, it’s one of the more appalling domestic violence histories that the court sees,” police prosecutor Courtney Brown said.

“By way of statistics, in the defendant’s adult history, he has some 46 individual DV offences.

“Breaking that down, 33 of those are breaches of an order, 13 being DV classified offences.

“In that history, two of them are assaults occasioning bodily harm, two common assaults, one trespass, one burglary, one serious assault of a person over 60, four wilful damages and two assault police.”

Ms Brown said the man’s history showed that when he was sentenced to a court order, a probation order or a suspended sentence, “the common trend” was him breaching those orders.

“It seems that almost all his suspended sentences are activated throughout his history because he just keeps offending.

“Your Honour, he’s spent also, quite some time in prison for DV offending and it just doesn’t seem to have stopped him.”

The court heard that one of these offences for which the man was being dealt with had caused a parole breach.

Ms Brown’s submission was the court “had no other option” but to impose a period of imprisonment with time served and she said a sentence of between 18 months and two years could be imposed.

“The court just has no other option but to keep the defendant locked up for the protection of this aggrieved and the protection of her family,” she said.

“The aggrieved has been putting up with it for far too long.”

Solicitor Ken Spinaze agreed that a term of imprisonment was the only available sentence but he submitted a range of 12 to 18 months was in order.

Mr Spinaze asked Magistrate Cameron Press to take these offences into context and not be “overborne” by the man’s history.

Mr Spinaze also asked Mr Press to take into account the woman had hit the man with an iron bar first, and then “charged him” and hit him with her body.

Before handing down penalty, Mr Press noted that alcohol had played a part in the man’s offending and that his behaviour had not been deterred by previous probation, suspended sentences and serving actual jail time.

“You must address it (alcohol problem) if you want to escape jail,” Mr Press said.

The magistrate also told the man that it must have been “quite terrifying” for his children to have witnessed the rod incident.

Mr Press sentenced the man to 15 months’ jail and declared 58 days’ pre-sentence custody served.

A parole release date was set at May 9, 2022.