Troy Thompson sentenced at Bendigo Magistrates’ Court for choking woman while holding her baby

A former Kangaroo Flat man has been exposed for punching and choking a Bendigo woman to the point of suffocation while he held her baby.

Troy Thomson, 27, was convicted for choking a Bendigo woman while he held a baby.

A Sunshine man’s remorse has spared him jail after he punched and choked a Bendigo woman while he held her baby.

Troy Thomson, 27, was convicted and sentenced to an 18-month community corrections order and a $750 fine after pleading guilty at Bendigo Magistrates’ Court to a raft of charges including unlawful assault and recklessly cause injury.

Magistrate Russell Kelly told the court Thompson acted in a “thuggish and “brutish” way towards the victim at Kangaroo Flat on August 3 last year.

During an argument Thompson ripped a child booster seat out of a car, throwing it on the lawn in anger before following the victim inside and shoving her into some furniture, causing bruising.

Two days later in the early hours of August 5, a fight started when the baby started crying.

When the complainant couldn’t get the baby to stop crying, Thompson took the baby from her.

He then pulled the blankets off her and said “you don’t get to be warm” before he “punched” her hand away when she tried to cover herself.

While holding the baby in his arms the grub “squeezed her neck” for about 30 seconds so she couldn’t breathe and pulled her hair.

Police arrived shortly after to find the victim with injuries to her neck and arrested Thompson.

Thompson was released on bail, on August 7, only serving three days on remand before moving to Sunshine to live with his brother, where he has since started an apprenticeship in refrigeration.

Thompson’s lawyer Robert Morgan told the court the offender had immediately showed remorse, telling the victim to call police and making “full and frank admissions” to the act of violence.

“He’s not blaming the victim, he accepts full responsibility. This is someone who is trying to make amends for – what is in his own words – ‘appalling behaviour’,” Mr Morgan said.

Mr Morgan said Thompson was exposed to family violence as a child perpetrated by his father, but was now working to break the cycle, starting the men’s behaviour change program on his own volition to change his ways.

Thompson walked from court after he was sentenced to an 18 month community corrections order.

“He is determined to make amends … and to never engage in this behaviour again,” Mr Morgan said.

Mr Roberts told the court Thompson had bipolar, which reduced the offender’s moral culpability asking for Magistrate Russell Kelly to impose a therapeutic sentence, instead of making an example out of Thompson.

But Bendigo police said the community would “expect” a jail sentence following the horrific spike of men murdering women this year.

“Everyone knows what’s happening around the country with violence against women,” the police prosecutor said.

“He’s decided that when things don’t go his way, he’s going to cut off her airways.

“He could have gone the extra step and killed her.”

Mr Kelly found Thompson to have “demonstrated insight, remorse and regret”.

“A jail term is warranted but you have taken steps in the intervening period as much as you can to address the issues to make sure you don’t behave that way (again),” the magistrate said.

“Had you not done that you would have gone to jail for six months.”

Mr Kelly warned Thompson that any further violence against women would result in jail time.