A judge has described a man's conduct as "pointless cruelty" and "torture" while sentencing him to six years and nine months in jail for brutally and repeatedly attacking his partner.
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Glen Anthony Leigh, 28, pleaded guilty at the County Court in Geelong to 16 charges, including six charges of intentionally causing injury, five common law assault charges, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.
His primary victim was his 18-year-old partner - in his sentencing remarks, Judge Gerard Mullaly said Leigh had gotten her hooked on methamphetamines, before descending into paranoid delusions about her cheating on him while at his house in Delacombe.
During three weeks in February and March 2018, Leigh beat the victim with several weapons, including metal bars, a torch, an oar, and the blunt end of a tomahawk axe.
He also strangled her, threw buckets of water on her, and tied her to a bed while punching her, among other assaults.
In March, he took her to her mother's house in Geelong, and she was taken to hospital.
Medical staff discovered several fractured bones and three infected injuries on her leg.
Judge Mullaly noted the victim still had difficulties seeing and had "numbness in her leg".
"The injuries, as seen in the hospital, were photographed - I saw these photos, they were disturbing," Judge Mullaly said.
"The overall physical and especially the psychological effect on the victim has been significant."
Leigh was arrested in Ballarat, but soon after, he telephoned the victim and told her to retract her statements.
Leigh was also charged with firearm offences after police found a video of him shooting a handgun in his shed, as well as assaulting two other people, one with a tomahawk.
The victim submitted an impact statement, which Judge Mullaly read extracts from in court.
"I was psychologically stable when I first started seeing Glen, but now I am a completely different person," he read.
"I lost the daughter I raised because of what you did. "We have both been changed forever."
- The victim's mother
"I'm so paranoid, I'm scared of anyone getting too close to me, I constantly have flashbacks, I don't sleep properly, I still have physical trouble due to my injuries - I feel as though I was some sort of entertainment."
The victim's mother also submitted a statement.
"The night that my daughter was dumped on my doorstep broken and battered changed my life forever," he read.
"What was once the safe house and happy life will never be the same
"I lost the daughter I raised because of what you did.
"You'd convinced yourself based on nothing but your delusions that the victim was having affairs with others - your response was cruel, cowardly, and degrading of the victim.
"We have both been changed forever."
Judge Mullaly was direct in his sentencing remarks on Monday - he noted Leigh's improvement while in custody, his recent remorse, as well as a psychologist's evidence that he had good prospects for rehabilitation, but said the conduct needed to be denounced.
"Most of the violence amounted to torture, meted out to have her confess to his deluded beliefs, often the assaults took place in the presence of others," he said.
"You'd convinced yourself based on nothing but your delusions that the victim was having affairs with others - your response was cruel, cowardly, and degrading of the victim.
"There was a pointless cruelty to it all - the height of the cruelty was tying her to the bed while naked and thus acutely vulnerable, and then punching her as each name was denied.
"This just has to be said for its bewildering gravity to be exposed."
Leigh will have to serve at least four years in prison before becoming eligible for parole
He has already served 602 days on remand.
"The community has expressed abhorrence to such crimes and such attitudes, the time of softer approaches to domestic violence is well gone," Judge Mullaly said.
"The prosecution contended that this was high-end domestic violence offending with aspects of torture and certainly of cruelty - it has left its mark on the victim, causing her life to rapidly and seriously deteriorate."
- Counselling is available 24 hours a day over the phone on 1800 RESPECT
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