By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A man accused of slapping his girlfriend’s head and holding broken glass to her throat has told a court that “she’s the abuser in the relationship”.
“I’m not a violent person in nature,” he told Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 16 July.
“I’m not a violent person generally. I don’t resort to violence.”
Magistrate Jack Vandersteen replied: “But your history is violence.”
During an argument at a Narre Warren South home on 15 July, she had taunted him about a rumour that he was sleeping with his sister, police told the court.
The man allegedly grabbed her throat, pushed her on the bed and demanded “who told you that?”.
He slapped her head up to 20 times, and picked up a broken glass and put it to her throat, the victim claimed.
“You’re lucky I didn’t kill you,” he allegedly told her.
“I’ve never wanted to kill someone as much as I do now.”
At one point, the man was armed with a kitchen knife while the victim tried to hold shut a side door, police alleged.
He grabbed her phone before she could reach triple-0.
She fired off text messages to her niece, telling her that the man had struck her. “I want you to have evidence if something happens to me,” she wrote.
The niece contacted police, who later arrived and arrested the man.
At the hearing, he consented to an interim full intervention order protecting the victim. However, his lawyer indicated he would later contest the order.
Police opposed bail to the man, who was charged with recklessly causing injury and threatening to kill.
He had several pending and prior matters including multiple burglaries, criminal damage, assaults, failure to answer bail, a threat to kill and driving offences.
“His history suggests he will continue to commit violence,” nominal informant Sergeant Chris Marlow told the court.
The man made partial admissions to police, but told the court that “she was the one with the knife, I had the piece of glass”.
He accused her of hitting him in the back of the head “all day”.
“She gets in front of you … you’re cowering because he is going to hit you.”
The man told the court that he’d been “kicking goals” since he had been out of prison.
When asked for “compelling reasons” for his release, he said he hadn’t offended for four years. He was earning good money while supervising seven co-workers.
He denied his partner’s statement that he’d smoked an ice pipe in the bedroom that day. It was just a piece of a broken pipe, he said.
A defence lawyer told the court that the man was a heavy smoker of cannabis, and used ice “from time to time”.
Magistrate Vandersteen ruled the man was unable to provide “compelling reasons” for being bailed.
“By me kicking goals, how isn’t it good enough?” the man replied.
“What is classed as compelling?”
Mr Vandersteen said: “By currently adjusting your attitude (to me) in the first place.”
“I’m just fighting for my rights, Your Honour,” the man said.
He said if his partner was a male, she’d be in custody and he’d be out free. He was just trying to defend himself, he said.
“She’s the abuser in the relationship … she’s used the weapons.
“She’s mentally unstable.”
The man was remanded to appear at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 31 July.
