Melbourne private school boy Damien Carew faces jail in France if found guilty of bashing his wife

A former student from St Kevin’s College will soon learn his fate after being accused of bashing his wife so badly she was left in a coma.

A Melbourne private school boy turned real estate high flyer faces jail in France of up to several years on Monday, if found guilty of bashing his Russian wife so badly she was left in a coma.

Damien Carew is due to appear in court in Nice, for a one-day trial, more than a year after he was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of Anna Polianskaya at their family home in the hilltop village of La Turbie near Monaco.

Carew, a graduate of the elite St Kevin’s College in Toorak in Melbourne, was at the time of the April 2023 incident on bail for a separate money laundering matter.

French police had been investigating him and others, after picking him up blind drunk in a Paris street with 200,000 euros ($A321,000) on him.

The laundering probe is ongoing and Carew, who lived a jet set life in Dubai before moving to Monaco to continue his real estate career there, has been charged but no trial date has yet been set.

At the time of the incident Damien Carew was on bail over a separate alleged money laundering matter. Picture: Facebook

Damien Carew with Anna Polianskaya Carew in happier times. Picture: Facebook

He was kept in detention for more than a year after the alleged drunken attack on Polianskaya the mother of his two children and only recently released on bail.

It is unclear where he has been living since his release but he is obliged to report regularly to a local police station.

News Corp attempted to contact Carew for comment.

Polianskaya is believed to have recovered from the assault and is said to be living along with the couple’s children with her wealthy parents on the Riviera.

The trial on Monday at the grandiose 19th-century courthouse in central Nice is expected to last only a few hours and the verdict will be delivered the same day, according to prosecutor Damien Martinelli.

Carew could face several years in prison if convicted but his time in detention will be deducted from any sentence.

Whatever the verdict on Monday he will still have to remain in France to face trial in the money laundering case that was launched after his arrest in late 2021 in Paris.

Anna and Damien Carew got married in Monaco in 2013. Picture: Facebook

Polianskaya is believed to have recovered from the assault and is said to be living along with the couple’s children with her wealthy parents on the Riviera. Picture: Facebook

That was the moment that brought his glittering lifestyle to an abrupt end.

Carew seemed to have it all – a flashy career doing real estate deals in the exclusive Principality of Monaco and an apparently Instagram-perfect life with his glamorous Russian bride.

But he now cuts a sorry figure, accused of both serious assault on his wife and involvement in an international money laundering scheme that French prosecutors say stretched from France to Monaco via Dubai to Iran.

He has been charged with aggravated money laundering and conspiracy to commit an offence punishable by 10 years or more in jail.

Damien’s mother Wendy Carew has not commented on the matter.

An Irishman allegedly involved in the money laundering scheme with Carew was named as a money launderer in a London court earlier this year in the trial of a Chinese woman later convicted after one of the world’s largest ever seizures of cryptocurrency.

Michael James Burke, the heir to an Irish pharmaceutical fortune, was like Carew involved in real estate in Dubai, a popular destination for the world’s criminal classes.

Burke, who the London court heard laundered bitcoins for the Chinese woman, is believed to be still in Dubai.

After Carew was arrested on the street in Paris, police found a further 160,000 euros ($A256,000) in his Airbnb apartment near the Champs Elysées. Investigators later discovered more than four million euros ($A6.42m) in questionable transactions linked to him.

Originally published as Melbourne private school boy Damien Carew faces jail in France if found guilty of bashing his wife