UPDATE, MARCH 17, 2018: A jealous Christopher Josevski thought he could assault his girlfriend as he pleased when he knocked her down and kidnapped her, by dragging her from a Melbourne service station by her hair in a "disgraceful" attack.
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The violent episode in the Derrimut Coles Express, witnessed by shocked onlookers and captured on CCTV, was "extraordinary and callous", bringing to an end days of offending against the woman, who feared she would be killed, County Court Judge Michael Tinney said.
"This was dreadful offending targeting a young woman," he told Josevski on Friday, as he jailed him for four years, with a non-parole period of two-and-a- half years.
Josevski chased his partner and knocked her to the ground after she fled inside the service station on February 23 last year.
As she struggled, he punched her, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her through the doors to his car, taking her back to a caravan in Gordon, near Ballarat.
She was later found by police and taken to hospital, where she was treated for injuries, including a broken nose.
Judge Tinney said Josevski, who also smashed his girlfriend's phone, was jealous and suspicious, and held a sense of power and entitlement, believing he could control her.
"You believed you could assault your partner at will," he said.
"Get it into your head. You don't possess, you don't control others."
The court heard Josevski lied to police, said the woman wanted to be with him and was free to go at any time.
He also claimed she was pregnant, but she said she wasn't.
Josevski, who pleaded guilty to 12 offences including intentionally causing serious injury, common assault, kidnapping and making threats to kill, has already served 380 days behind bars.
He was also fined a total of $3000 over a gun, ammunition and cannabis found at his property.
Josevski, a painter and carpenter, had abused illegal drugs for a number of years, the court heard, but he wasn't affected at the time.
Judge Tinney said his rehabilitation prospects were "quite good", given his age and family support.
National domestic violence helpline: 1800 737 732 or 1800RESPECT.
In an emergency call triple-zero.
MARCH 14, 2018: He fractured her nose two months into the relationship. By six months she was listed in his mobile phone not by name or as his girlfriend but as ‘‘Hitler’s evil sister’’.
He was controlling and jealous, and on February 23 last year he smashed her phone and said she was spending too much time with friends and not enough with him.
So Christopher Josevski made sure his girlfriend stayed with him that night.
By punching her and dragging her out of a Derrimut service station by the hair, shoving her into the car and then kidnapping her and taking her to a caravan on a rural block in Gordon.
When police found the pair the next day, the County Court heard this week, he had clumps of her hair on his clothing, and she was asleep and later needed to be treated for shock, a fractured nose, grazing, swelling and bite wounds, having also been told she would be forced to write goodbye letters to her family before being killed.
Josevski told the woman to ‘‘get in the f------ car’’ at the service station, prosecutor Aggy Kapitaniak said, and when she ran in to the store, he chased her, punched and then dragged her, firstly into the door and then outside and to the car.
CCTV cameras captured the ordeal, but Josevski later denied to police assaulting his girlfriend and claimed she could have left the caravan, in Gordon, near Ballarat, any time she wanted, Ms Kapitaniak said.
Josevski pleaded guilty to intentionally causing injury, kidnap, making a threat to kill, two counts of assault and three of criminal damage. He also admitted possessing cannabis, an air rifle and ammunition without permits at the caravan.
Defence counsel Ian Freckelton, QC, said his client ‘‘offers no justification for it and no excuses’’.
‘‘What occurred is disgraceful and thoroughly unedifying,’’ he said.
But when Dr Freckelton outlined, for ‘‘context’’, how toxic the relationship had become, mentioned the girlfriend’s drug use, a false claim about a pregnancy, and how troubled Josevski’s mother was about the pair, judge Michael Tinney pulled him up.
‘‘I am sure the mother of the victim is more troubled by the relationship,’’ Judge Tinney said, before addressing Dr Freckelton directly.
‘‘You let me know when the plea in mitigation is going to start.’’
Over the rest of the hearing the judge challenged several defence points.
He questioned whether a psychologist could assess remorse and rehabilitative prospects after one two-hour assessment last weekend; asked if character referees wrote letters from a template; and rejected a submission the girlfriend’s injuries were just physical.
‘‘I’m sure she’ll have memories of this for the rest of her life,’’ Judge Tinney said.
The girlfriend was not in court.
Josevski, Dr Freckelton said, was a tradesman with a good work history and family support, and was so remorseful he wrote his victim a letter and thought daily about what he did.
‘‘What he is not to do,’’ Judge Tinney said, ‘‘is to monster women, to smack them around, to punch them, to drag them around by the hair.’’
Josevski will be sentenced on Friday.
He is also due to return to court later this month, for allegedly spitting at a cameraman on the day last year he got bail.
He was later returned to custody.