A man who stabbed his former partner twice in the chest following a night of drinking in her Sunshine house, is out of jail six months early after successfully appealing his sentence.
Emmanuel Deng-Mabior appealed against his two-year prison term and a two-year community corrections order for recklessly causing serious injury, arguing the sentencing judge failed to fix a non-parole period.
The Supreme Court heard last month the 34-year-old and his former partner, ‘R’, both born in Sudan, had met in a Kenyan refugee camp in 2002, moved to Australia and had three children together.
However, their relationship was “somewhat strained” and they lived together only intermittently, the court heard.
It was told that Deng-Mabior, in breach of an intervention order, had been living with R and her family in Sunshine for about two months prior to the offence on January 20, 2014.
About 6.45am, a “significantly inebriated” Deng-Mabior, having slept on the couch after a night out drinking with friends, had a verbal altercation with his former partner, after R berated Deng-Mabior for being drunk.
It quickly became violent, and R ran to the kitchen where she picked up a knife and then returned to the bedroom.
During a struggle, R was stabbed twice in the chest, suffering a collapsed lung, bruising and a cut airway, which required further surgery.
The court heard Deng-Mabior had been suffering from a complex post-traumatic stress disorder and, when mixed with alcohol, this would have impaired his judgement.
His drinking had increased around the time of the offence after he discovered that two men, who had fought under him in the Sudanese army, had recently been killed.
Judges Maxwell, Weinberg and Kyrou reduced his sentence by six months for being an “exemplary prisoner”. The court heard that Deng-Mabior’s prison time had been beneficial to him.
He has been in custody since his arrest on January 20, 2014.
