Serial abuser sentenced for years of horrifying violence against young children and partner

A father subjected his young children and their mother, the woman he was meant to love, to years of barbaric abuse – he tried to claim it was a product of their relationship. WARNING: distressing content.

A Toowoomba father has pleaded guilty to 19 counts of domestic violence offences ranging from strangulation to armed assault before a Toowoomba District Court on Thursday April 3. Picture: File

A Toowoomba man has claimed to be a great father figure after purposefully dragging his young son to watch as he threatened his mother’s life with an axe.

A Toowoomba father has pleaded guilty to 19 counts of domestic violence offences ranging from strangulation to armed assault before a Toowoomba District Court on Thursday April 3 after inflicting years of abuse on his three young children and their mother.

The man cannot be named to protect the identities of his victims.

The court heard, from the age of 22 to 26, the man consistently tormented his young family, with all of the children under the age of four at the time.

Over the five years they were together, the man viciously battered his partner numerous times: punching her in the face and head, pushing her against walls and car doors, injuring her with heavy glass objects, and, on one occasion, aggressively ripping her earring, tearing her skin.

Twice, the defendant choked the woman to a point where she could barely breathe.

“There was an argument, the defendant ended up grabbing the complainant’s throat after saying she was ‘nothing but a putrid dog’,” Crown prosecutor Hamish McIntyre said of one instance.

The second strangulation occurred after she saw the man headbutt her eldest child, not yet four, with gratuitous force.

“He then became angry with the mother, grabbed her by the throat with his left hand and applied pressure – she could hardly breathe,” Mr McIntyre said.

His infant and toddler aged children were not saved from his abuse, treated to unwarranted lashings, which left bruises and red marks, under the guise of discipline.

“His very young child was crying, she was teething; the defendant took her outside holding her by the arm, he slapped her by the side of the face and the body,” Mr McIntyre said.

“(He told) her, ‘shut the f*** up, you happy? Now you have something to cry for’.”

She was five-months-old.

The court heard, near to the end of their relationship, the man callously forced his three-year-old child to watch as he held his mother’s head to a chopping block and pushed an axe into her neck.

He then threatened her life.

“Don’t f***ing move or I’ll kill you,” he said.

“I’m going to cut your head off.”

Mr McIntyre said the children and their mother now suffered from serious mental health complications as a result of the years of abuse.

“It is rare to see an opinion that a child as young as around the age of three is suffering from illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder and extreme anxiety,” he said.

“Most psychologists don’t usually diagnose such young children in a formal way with those conditions … but here it is pretty clear where that issue has arisen from.

“Seeing these things in the home would be terrifying.”

Several years into his abuse, the man was served a police protection notice and subsequently a domestic violence order requiring him to be of good behaviour towards the victim.

Regardless, his abuse continued.

Defence barrister Rob Glenday said the man turned a corner in his new relationship, despite not completing any domestic violence or substance rehabilitation programs.

“He was young at the time ... he was 22 when he started; he was not 18 but he was acting like an 18 year old,” he said.

“He is a proactive (step) parent.

“He’s caring for the children, he’s with his partner and there’s been no issues, no incidents of any nature, nothing like before.

“He’s obviously matured now, he’s grown and he’s obviously got a lot of insight into his actions over that period of time.”

Mr Glenday added the abuse was driven by alcohol and substance misuse and stated the man, on his instructions, had remained sober since his arrest.

“At that period of time, he didn’t know how to deal with the situation,” he said.

The barrister tried to argue factors of the relationship, such as goading language, could have caused the escalation of abuse but was cut short by Judge Suzanne Sheridan.

“Who knows whether it was the dynamic of that relationship,” he said.

“That’s not part of the facts,” Judge Sheridan retorted.

She went on to stress the seriousness of the prolonged and intense abuse, particularly against “young innocent children”.

“What we have here is a protracted period of domestic violence occurring on and off over a five-year period, notwithstanding the serving of a police protection order followed on by a domestic violence order.

“None of that triggered any change.

“We can hold hope that there has been some maturity and change, but not after all the damage was done.”

The man was sentenced for 4 years with parole eligibility after 15 months of actual imprisonment.