By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Ex-boyfriend strangled and hit girl with hammer…
A SCHOOLGIRL has described her devastation after being struck three times with a hammer, punched and strangled in a sustained attack by her ex-boyfriend at his Hampton Park family home.
Her 18-year-old attacker pleaded guilty in Dandenong Magistrates’ Court to intentionally and recklessly causing injury as well as false imprisonment on 2 and 3 October.
He sat with a bowed head in the dock as the 17-year-old victim – flanked by tearful family and friends – read aloud her victim impact statement at the 10 October hearing.
The Year 11 student said the first 11 months of their relationship was “loving” but now she was terrified.
“He was my first real boyfriend.
“Now I can’t believe that this has happened to me.”
She’d lost count of the beatings. Her body had been punched all over and she’d suffered black eyes and blood noses, she said.
In November, people started noticing her excessively bruised arms while she was at the beach. She told them she played rugby.
In the statement she added that when she told her boyfriend that she was pregnant, he allegedly accused her of sleeping around, called her a slut and kicked and punched her stomach.
“I made a decision to have a termination because I was terrified of the injuries to the unborn baby.”
Those allegations, however, were not the subject of police charges.
In another assault, he knocked out her front tooth. She is still struggling to pay for her repaired tooth and the termination, she told the court.
She said her attacker had “taken everything from me”, had made her feel “worthless”, unable to sleep and “afraid to love again”.
Police prosecutor Leading Senior Constable Kerryn Steyn told the court that the ex-partners had met at a park near the accused’s home on 2 October.
He told his victim that she had two choices – to come with him or he’d chase her down and harm her.
She went with him inside his family home where she was punched.
His mother allegedly told him: “I don’t want to hear her crying. You have to stop or I’ll take her home.”
The victim indicated she wanted to go home and was led by him into a backyard shed where he struck her three times to the head with a hammer.
He told her if she called police “I’ll kill myself or you”.
Angered by a video found on her phone, he choked her twice until she was unconscious. He later told police that he had got so angry that he had blacked out himself.
He had choked her to scare her and stop her yelling, he allegedly told police.
As he held a sharp tool near her eye, he told her again that he would kill her.
The ordeal ended when his mother rang the victim’s family.
His defence lawyer said he was not violent with his relatives at home, had no criminal history but had been recently sent away by his mother to a Brisbane relative to solve his anger problems.
“His issue is anger. He’s blacked out during this incident. He gets so angry he blacks out.”
Magistrate Jack Vandersteen said in sentencing that he had to consider the accused’s young age, lack of prior convictions, but also his chances of rehabilitation and the need to protect the victim.
“These are very serious allegations. The court has to be very cautious how it goes about sentencing you.
“No court would sentence you without a psychiatric report (to understand your behaviour).”
Mr Vandersteen said the accused was most likely facing imprisonment in a youth detention centre followed by parole or a youth justice order.
He was put on a full, indefinite intervention order to protect the victim.
He was remanded in custody for sentencing at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 21 November.
