A 40-year-old drug user convicted of raping his partner with a baseball bat and eight other assaults was sentenced in the Supreme Court in Launceston to a six-year jail term.
Justice Robert Pearce condemned the actions of the notorious criminal saying he saw little prospect of reform for the man with family violence convictions against three different partners.
A Supreme Court jury recently took just an hour and a half to find him guilty of the relatively new charge of persistent family violence against his 25-year-old pregnant partner in 2019.
Related: Accused DNA was on baseball bat
"You committed cowardly attacks against a vulnerable woman in her own home," he said. Justice Pearce ordered a four-year non-parole period.
He said he regarded the offences with a baseball bat as abhorrent. He found the crimes of rape and assault on a pregnant woman were committed.
"It was telling that despite the fear and distress caused by the rape she said it was not as bad as the beatings with the bat," Justice Pearce said.
"The bruising on her thigh is inconsistent with any other explanation other than being caused by the bat."
The man's DNA being found on the end of the bat was strong corroboration of the rape complaint. The man's evidence that he smashed 10 mobile phones during the five-month relationship was a weighty indication of his violent, dominating, controlling, domineering behaviour.
He said he found that woman to be a truthful witness who gave powerful and compelling evidence.
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"Her evidence was supported by her injuries, forensic evidence and the evidence of the complainant's mother," he said.
Justice Pearce condemned the man's evidence to the jury that the attacks were a fabrication. "I did not believe you," he said.
"Your evidence of the bruises coming from a fall to the floor was implausible."
He rejected the evidence of four defence witnesses who were either too drug-affected to notice or who turned a blind eye.
The man's criminal career included a five-year jail sentence for aggravated armed robbery.
Nick Clark
I am the Supreme and Magistrates Court reporter for the Examiner for the past 18 months. My journalism career has clicked over 30 years and encompasses four different spells at Tasmanian newspapers.
I am the Supreme and Magistrates Court reporter for the Examiner for the past 18 months. My journalism career has clicked over 30 years and encompasses four different spells at Tasmanian newspapers.
