Over a four-month period, he persistently strangled, beat and spat on his partner

The courts in Toowoomba heard that on one occasion the 44-year-old Toowoomba man had strangled his girlfriend to a point she lost consciousness. Full details of the sickening attack here. 

Over a four-month period the man regularly punched, kicked, spat on and strangled his girlfriend, the Toowoomba District Court heard.

A TOOWOOMBA man who over a four-month period repeatedly and brutally beat, strangled and demeaned his girlfriend has been jailed for five years.

The 45-year-old man, who cannot be named due to domestic violence orders, pleaded guilty before Toowoomba District Court to 17 offences against the then 39-year-old woman which included five counts of assault occasioning bodily harm, three of assault occasioning bodily harm while armed and four of strangulation in a domestic setting.

Crown prosecutor Nicole Friedewald said many of those offences had taken place inside the woman’s Toowoomba home where she was entitled to feel safe.

The man was a truck driver and was transporting a load of cattle to Oakey from Pittsworth in March 2021 when he first saw the woman who was hitchhiking.

After unloading the cattle, he had driven back and stopped to talk to the woman and the pair had hooked up from there but his first signs of violence against her emerged just three weeks into the relationship, she said.

Over the ensuing four months of their relationship, he had regularly punched her in the face, kicked her leaving her with broken ribs, choked her to the point she couldn’t breathe and spat in her face, Ms Friedewald said.

In what was considered the most serious of his heinous acts, the man had kicked the woman in the back and then dragged her out of a room and threw her onto the floor.

After pinning her to the floor with his knees on her chest, he strangled her until she lost consciousness, Ms Friedewald said.

When she eventually came to and was able to stand up, he then punched her in the stomach, she said.

Before he met the victim, the man already had 11 convictions for domestic violence against four other women, the Toowoomba District Court heard.

Even when a temporary protection order was imposed after police found her battered and bruised, the man had continued his attacks on the woman.

The couple was due in Toowoomba Magistrates Court for a domestic violence court hearing but he had strangled and punched her the night before leaving her with a black eye.

Ms Friedewald said the man told her “I’ll have to kill you now, you can’t go to court looking like that”.

Shockingly, Ms Friedewald told the court this victim wasn’t the man’s first.

He had 11 previous convictions for domestic violence offences against four other women in his past, she said.

The man’s barrister David Jones said his client’s offending stemmed from the use of meth which he had been introduced to early on in his truck driving career by employers who wanted drivers to work longer hours.

The man had since spent more than eight months in custody which had been tough and spent mainly in isolation and lockdown conditions, he said.

Judge Ian Dearden said the man’s offending was among the worst he had heard of in his years on the bench.

“When I read the schedule of facts I felt physically sick,” Judge Dearden told the man.

Describing his offending as “appalling, despicable and brutal”, Judge Dearden said no human being deserved to be treated like that.

“If the prime trigger for your offending (is drugs), you’ve got to find a way to get meth out of your life,” he told him.

Declaring the 258 days pre-sentence custody as time served under the sentence, Judge Dearden sentenced the man to five years in jail but ordered the term be suspended after 20 months for five years and that he be released on parole as of March 13, 2023.