Cameron Douglas Hall sentenced in Toowoomba District Court for strangling his partner

The 29-year-old strangled and bashed his then de facto wife leading to a jail term. See what the judge said about him.

A 29-year-old Toowoomba man who squeezed the throat of his de facto wife to the point she couldn’t breathe has been jailed for three years.

Cameron Douglas Hall had become angry with his partner on January 22, 2022, due to comments she made while he was on the phone to his ex-partner, Toowoomba District Court was told on Tuesday.

During an ensuing argument, Hall grabbed his partner around the neck and squeezed, leaving her gasping for breath, Crown prosecutor Shontelle Petrie told the court.

Thinking she was going to die, the woman scratched at Hall’s face and kicked out at him to make him let go, she said.

A short time later, Hall struck the woman to the side of her head a number of times causing her ear to bleed before yanking her hair during which she later said she felt wobbly and saw stars, Ms Petrie said.

About six weeks later on March 5, 2022, Hall had again become angry with his partner after she had been drinking with others and driving, the court was told.

Seeing her with other men, Hall became jealous and punched her in the face a number of times, splitting her lip and leaving her bleeding before trying to pull her false eyelashes off and biting her on the nose, Ms Petrie said.

He had then walked off with the other men, she said.

Toowoomba Courthouse

The next day when police arrived at her home on another matter, they saw her swollen and bruised face and the incident came to light, Ms Petrie said.

Hall, who had spent the ensuing 383 days in custody, appeared in custody to plead guilty to strangulation in a domestic setting, and two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm.

Ms Petrie said Hall had 12 pages of criminal history although this was the first time he had been before the higher court.

Hall had been subject in the past to four separate parole orders, three probation orders, four suspended sentences and one community service order and had breached all but one of those orders, she said.

Hall’s barrister Jens Streit told the court his client had endured a traumatic childhood and had witnessed the death of his younger sister who was crushed by a stove.

That had led Hall into drug use from the age of 10 and he had grown up on drugs but now wanted to get away from substance abuse, he said.

From the dock, Hall told Judge Leanne Clare SC that he’d done a number of programs in jail to better himself in an effort to get out of prison.

Judge Clare described the assaults on the woman as “brutish and cowardly”.

Noting the 383 days he had been in custody, Judge Clare sentenced Hall to three years in jail, dated back to March 10, 2022, when he was taken into custody, and ordered he be released on parole as of June 10, 2023.