Bashing, biting, choking: the domestic violence horror Kumanjayi Walker perpetrated on his girlfriend before being shot by cop Zachary Rolfe

Kumanjayi Walker’s girlfriend reveals how she forgave the Yuendumu teenager for vicious assaults before he was shot to death by police officer Zachary Rolfe.

Face-biting, bashing her head with a rock, punching, kicking, pinching her cheeks and choking are among the sickening acts of violence that Arnold Walker inflicted on his girlfriend Rickisha Robertson in the years before police fatally shot him.

Police officer Zachary Rolfe has been found not guilty of murdering Walker.

Ms Robertson told The Australian in an interview she blamed herself for the assaults, which included Walker beating her with a piece of steel, breaking her left hand.

“It was really hard that he was assaulting me but he always said ‘I forgive you’,” she said.

“I forgive him and he forgave me too.

“I’m the one who was getting into his way.

“I was trying to stop him from … getting mad at me.”

Zachary Rolfe. Picture: Julianne Osborne

Before his death, Kumanjayi Walker was known by his birth name, Arnold Charles Walker.

Walker would beat Robertson until she cried out in pain, kick her in the face, drag her by the hair and bash her – not only behind closed doors, but often in public as well.

He even attacked her while she slept.

So jealous and possessive was the teenager of his younger girlfriend that he even threatened her for dancing.

And after episodes of severe physical abuse, he’d threaten to commit suicide if she reported the attacks to police.

The pair met in 2015 after Walker moved in with his grandmother Margaret Brown at Yuendumu.

Robertson, then 14, was living with her father Ethan and grandparents Eddie and Lottie Robertson, who took Walker under their wing.

Within a year of meeting Walker was perpetrating savage and regular violence.

The first assault occurred on April 10, 2016 when Rickisha was 14.

That evening Robertson was with two female cousins at the Yuendumu basketball court when Walker approached the girls and punched Robertson in the arm before twisting and extending it, causing her to scream out in pain.

Robertson’s cousins screamed at him to stop and he then started walking away.

“I’m going to kill myself if you don’t come with me,” he told Robertson.

His girlfriend, who was 15 at the time, went looking for him and found him sniffing petrol at the home of relative Ernest Brown.

She asked him to stop but he said “no I need to sniff”.

He then turned around, grabbed Robertson around the throat with both hands, squeezed her neck tightly and lifted her off the ground.

Robertson was terrified and struggling to breathe when Brown intervened, pulling Walker’s hands off her neck.

Robertson then tried to leave but Walker chased her outside, demanding she come back. When she refused, he picked up a tennis-ball sized rock and threw it at her, hitting her back.

Afraid, Robertson has gone back inside with Walker. He pushed her into the bedroom and told her to lie down. He then bent down over her and bit her left cheek.

When Walker finally fell asleep, Robertson snuck out and ran back to her grandparents’ house.

Late the next night (April 11) Robertson was in the commentator’s grandstand at the football oval with her sister when Walker came to the oval with several girls.

Walker climbed the grandstand stairs and entered the commentator’s box where he grabbed Robertson by the arm and pulled her down the stairs.

Robertson tumbled down the stairs until she hit the ground at the bottom.

Walker then kicked and punched her in the face while she lay on the ground.

On the evening of April 13 Walker and Robertson were walking together away from West Camp when Walker accused Robertson of being with other boys during the day.

As they were walking past the basketball court Walker grabbed Robertson by the hair and punched her in the face twice.

Robertson fell to the ground, on her back, and put her arms up to protect her face. Walker then punched her in the stomach three times.

When Walker calmed down, he pulled her up off the ground and they walked back to West Camp together.

In a separate incident from April 2016, Walker assaulted Robertson in front of her cousins.

Robertson and a young female cousin had been walking around the Yuendumu football oval at about midnight when Walker ran over to them “from nowhere” and started hitting Robertson “lots of times” in the head.

When Robertson fell to the ground, crying out in pain, Walker started kicking her.

Robertson cried out for Walker to stop but he continued the attack her until her cousin grabbed his arm and screamed at him to stop.

After the assault, Robertson then went back to Walker’s grandmother’s house with him.

In late July 2016, Walker assaulted Robertson in his bedroom at house 511 in Yuendumu where he was living with grandmother Margaret Brown.

Robertson was laying on the bed when Walker became jealous about her and another male. He told her that he wanted to hit both her and the male.

Robertson tried to hide under a blanket as Walker became angry. He pulled away the blanket and punched her nose, between her eyes, splitting her nose open.

When Robertson started to scream Walker squeezed both of her cheeks so hard that his fingernails broke the skin and she started bleeding.

Robertson was screaming so Walker covered her mouth with the palm of his hand.

Robertson stayed at Walker’s house that night because she was too scared to leave.

The next day Robertson’s aunt showed her how to use bush medicine on her injuries.

The top of her nose and left cheek are permanently scarred from the assault.

A similar public attack took place about 11pm on August 9, 2016 when Robertson and three of her ‘cousin sisters’ were walking from the Yuendumu basketball courts back to their grandparents’ house when they passed a group of boys including Walker.

Apparently, the younger boys told Walker that Robertson had sworn at him.

Walker became angry and ran over to the girls, asking Robertson, “who swore at me?” and “did you swear at me?”.

Another cousin of Robertson said, “she never swore at you”.

“She did, them little boys told me,” said Walker before punching Robertson in the face four times.

His girlfriend cried out in pain as her lip swelled and her nose started bleeding but Walker wouldn’t stop.

He grabbed her shirt and pulled her down to the ground. As she fell Robertson grabbed her cousin’s shirt in an attempt to stay upright but Walker pushed the cousin away with one hand and pulled Rickisha to the ground with his other hand.

Three of Robertson’s female cousins tried to pull Walker off her but he was too strong and started choking Robertson with one hand around her throat.

One of the female cousins ran to get help and returned with a male cousin, who told Walker to “leave my little sister alone”.

Walker then ran off and the male cousin took the four girls back to their grandparents’ house. Robertson’s grandmother Lottie took them to the Yuendumu Clinic to seek treatment for her granddaughter whose mouth was swollen, bruised and bleeding.

Walker later claimed he had been sniffing deodorant at the time of the assaults.

Within weeks he was back in Yuendumu with Rickisha, where the abuse continued.

Police were concerned Walker’s behaviour seemed to be escalating, but Robertson - like many victims of domestic violence - was at times unwilling to discuss what was happening.

Other members of the Warlpiri community were increasingly concerned about Rickisha’s safety.

Kumanjayi Walker and girlfriend Rickisha Robertson in a social media image captioned: “Arnold loves Kisha”.

Rickisha, now 20, told The Australian the most painful attack was when Walker broke her left hand while beating her with a piece of steel.

“I tried blocking myself because he was really mad,” she said.

“He assaulted me because I’m the one who was doing the wrong thing.

“I was on the phone all night (and that was) making him mad.

“He wants me to sleep next to him and leave the phone and go to sleep but I was looking at Facebook.”

On that occasion, police were notified.

“He just broke my arm and like my bone was cracked but he’s the one who take me to hospital at Alice Springs,” she said.

Rickisha was often reluctant to involve authorities but sometimes – like when she required medical treatment for her injuries – she had no choice.

After one assault when police became involved, Walker fled to Queensland to avoid arrest.

Rickisha Robertson told The Australian her family tried to help Walker when his own family rejected him.

My grandfather and grandmother told him, ‘(he) gotta stay in this family’,” she said.

“My grandmother and grandfather told him, ‘you gotta live with us and we gotta give you my granddaughter’.

Leanne Oldfield, Walker’s foster mother, visits his gravesite in Yuendumu with relatives Meggerie Brown and Lara. Picture: Amos Aikman

“It was because his family don’t want him no more.”

Despite Walker assaulting her “all of the time”, she is “still sad” about his death.

When Walker returned to Yuendumu at the end of October, he was “acting good”.

Rickisha said he threatened to hit her, but didn’t follow through.

“I was really happy to see him,” she said.

“He was good.

“He did talking to hit me but he forgot.”

Lottie Robertson told detectives, after Walker was fatally shot by police in November, that the escalating abuse was “no big thing”.

Following Walker’s death Eddie and Lottie both told ABC’s 7.30 program that they took Walker in when he was young and raised him until his death.

“We took him under our wings to be able to give him the care, give him the love that he’s missed out on,” Lottie said.

“We had one happy family,” Eddie told 7.30.

They couple told 7.30 that their granddaughter was too upset to talk on camera.

“They met when they were only young,” Lottie said.

“And their love grew deeper.”

Lottie said something similar to The Australian at the time.

“I know a lot of people talk about him, talk about his bad ways, but to me he was a human being, a respected young fellow in my house,” she said.

“He had manners. He was a quiet person.

“His smile would ­always make my granddaughter smile, too.”