Hayden Griffiths, 24, jailed at Bendigo Magistrates’ Court for savage bashing of woman in front of her daughter

An Echuca man has been jailed for savagely bashing a woman in front of her toddler, telling the child her mother “deserved it”.

Hayden Griffiths was jailed for a horrific assault on a woman in front of her daughter.

An Echuca man has been jailed for savagely bashing a woman in front of her daughter near Kyabram.

Hayden Griffiths, 24, was jailed for eight months at Bendigo Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday for a vicious assault on a woman, leaving her bruised all over her body.

Griffiths was arrested by Kyabram police in December last year after two “heinous “attacks on a woman leaving the house in disarray.

Griffiths broke into the woman’s home and kneed her, punched her and choked her in front of her daughter, telling the child the victim “deserved it”, the court heard.

The woman and her daughter were left traumatised by the vicious attack.

The victim said in a statement read to the court that the brutal attack had left her living in a state of fear.

“I’m constantly afraid someone will break into my home and injure me again,” she said.

“I’m too scared to leave the house … even the task of food shopping causes great anxiety.”

“I can’t enrol my daughter in kindergarten without support … the thought of walking back and forth to kinder frightens me.”

The victim said she was now living with her mother because she was scared to live alone and the sight of the damage to the doors and cupboards brought flashbacks of the attack.

But her biggest fear was Griffiths “carrying out the threats that when he gets out he will find me … and drag me out of the house and flog me”.

Griffiths had spent 94 days in pre-sentence.

The victim said the trauma of watching the assault had impacted her daughter’s development and degraded their relationship.

Griffiths’ lawyer objected to the assertion the assault had impacted the victim’s daughter’s development due to a lack of evidence.

But Magistrate Dominic Lennon said Griffiths’ “deplorable” and “horrendous” act of violence was made “even worse” because it was in front of a child.

Mr Lennon convicted and sentenced Griffiths to eight months in prison and a 12 months community corrections order with 100 hours of community service to be completed upon his release.