Scott James Drummond has been jailed for 10 years after bashing his partner with a pool cue.
A MAN who bashed his partner with a pool cue inside her Sebastopol home last year has been jailed for 10 years over her death, with a seven-year non-parole period.
Scott James Drummond, 46, pleaded guilty last month to one count of manslaughter in relation to the bashing of Sebastopol mother Simone Teusner on June 7, 2011.
Ms Teusner, 46, died in hospital two days after the attack.
Yesterday, Drummond stood in the dock of the Supreme Court at Ballarat with his hands clasped and his head down as Justice Elizabeth Curtain handed down her sentence.
He did not look at any of Ms Teusner’s family members gathered in court, nor react when one of them yelled “rot in hell” as he was being taken away.
Once Drummond was sentenced, the former partner of Ms Teusner and father of her two daughters, Barry Daniels, yelled from across the courtroom.
“Scott, my daughters don’t have a mother because you killed her. I hope you die in prison.”
Outside court, Mr Daniels told The Courier he had planned the outburst.
R “I’m just so angry,” he said.
“I thought he would have got at least 14 years. It shouldn’t have been manslaughter – it should have been murder.”
Mr Daniels said his life and the lives of his daughters had been destroyed by Drummond’s actions.
“It’s been traumatic ... it’s just been terrible,” he said.
“Whether we get closure out of this, I don’t know. This is just a shock to all of us.”
When handing down her sentence, Justice Curtain recounted how an alcohol-affected Drummond used a pool cue to assault Ms Teusner while her 15-year-old daughter was present.
The court heard during the “prolonged” assault, Ms Teusner threw a mobile phone at her daughter and screamed for her to call the police.
When Ms Teusner’s daughter left the room and called triple zero, she could see Drumond on top of her mother who was lying on a couch.
Justice Curtain said Drummond could still not remember the incident, so told him clearly what he had done.
“You had your left hand on her throat and a billiard cue in your right hand which you held above your head,” she told Drummond.
The court heard Ms Teusner’s daughter could hear her mother shouting as she dialled triple zero again, but the screams stopped after a short while.
Justice Curtain said the 15-year-old was terrified and went back inside to find her mother bloodied and unconscious beneath a blanket.
She said the family’s victim impact statements provided an “eloquent expression of the grief and loss suffered.”
Drummond has aready served 493 days in custody.