A rapist who "terrorised" his partner during multiple sexual and physical assaults, including forcing her to urinate in the backyard, was dragged from court after launching an angry tirade at the territory's top judge.
The man, who has not been named to protect the victim's identity, began shouting after Chief Justice Lucy McCallum sentenced him in the ACT Supreme Court on Tuesday, August 11.
"If you want to persuade the Sentence Administration Board that you are eligible for parole, you might want to persuade them that you have learnt not to yell at women who annoy you. Stop yelling," Chief Justice McCallum told him.
The 44-year-old replied, "I do not care," before escalating his shouting and swearing.
While the judge initially allowed him to remain in the courtroom, he became increasingly aggressive and was eventually wrestled to the ground, handcuffed, and removed following a lengthy struggle.
The man was sentenced for multiple sexual and physical violence offences, including four counts of sexual intercourse without consent, an act of indecency, and common assault.
Chief Justice McCallum handed down a sentence of eight years and six months, backdated to his May 2023 arrest for these offences and expiring in 2031.
As the man has been in custody since November 2016 for previous offending, the judge considered a total of 10 years behind bars to be appropriate, noting he was at risk of becoming institutionalised.
As a result, she set his non-parole date to November 7, 2026.
The court heard the man terrorised his long-term partner during a three-day ordeal in 2011.
The judge said the abuse started when the man repeatedly stomped on his sleeping partner's head with his shoes on.
He then drove her to another house, where he accused her of infidelity, ordered her to scrub herself in a hot shower, spat on her, and swore at her.
Afterwards, he threw her onto a couch and pointed a Stanley knife at her vagina, claiming he could tell that she had slept with another man.
"The victim's humiliation was compounded by the unscientific assertion that the offender could tell just by looking at her vagina that she had been having sexual intercourse with another man," Chief Justice MacCallum said.
"It is just another form of abuse."
Over the three days, the man, who was "high as a kite" and sleep-deprived at the time, raped his partner four times.
During the protracted assault, in which the court heard the victim was "humiliated" and "treated like a piece of meat," he repeatedly refused to let her use the bathroom, forcing her to urinate outside in the dirt before kicking her into her own urine.
The judge said the convicted rapist also carried out three other assaults against his partner between 2009 and 2012.
During a 2009 assault in a remote location, the court heard he picked the victim up by her hair, cut it with scissors before "flogging" her.
The judge said this assault was "particularly troubling", adding that "no woman deserves to be treated that way - like a possession or a badly treated domestic animal".
While Chief Justice McCallum found the man had shown no remorse, she said it was in the community's interest that his sentence balance punishment with prospects for rehabilitation.
However, addressing the man's defence lawyer directly after he was removed for his outburst, the judge said the abuser's behaviour demonstrates that "he has not learnt to manage his anger and he has not learnt not to shout at women who annoy him".
"He better get on top of that before he wants to get parole," she said.
