DV offender’s jailing extended after ‘lenient’ sentence
A man who cut his partner with a knife in front of a child and committed a series of other domestic violence offences has had his jail time extended by two years after his original sentence was declared too lenient.
Connor Stephens pleaded guilty in December to 14 offences against his de-facto partner and was sentenced to a maximum of four-and-a-half years in prison.
But on Wednesday the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal ruled the sentencing judge did not properly consider the principles of deterrence and community protection when handing down the jail term.
The sentence also failed to take into account the 26-year-old’s lack of remorse, and made “guarded findings” regarding his potential for rehabilitation, the court found.
“There was nothing in the respondent’s subjective case, based on the findings of the sentencing judge, that demanded such leniency,” Justice Nicholas Chen said.
“This supports an inference of undisclosed error … and a manifestly inadequate sentence.”
Stephens was charged with five counts of choking without consent, seven counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and two counts of being armed with intent to commit an indictable offence.
From 2018 to 2020, he beat his partner, choked her, withheld her antidepressant medication and cut her with a knife, with which he also threatened to kill her.
Some of his attacks happened in front of a young child.
Many of the incidents were brought on by paranoia over his partner cheating and he would often threaten to track down her male friends and colleagues to kill them, the judgment said.
“I’ll pop four Xanax and stab every guy I see if you don’t tell me his name,” the court heard Stephens once said.
He was arrested in October 2020 after police were called to the couple’s home over a fight that left the woman with lacerations on her chest and a swollen forearm.
Stephens’ new sentence will expire on November 28, 2029 and he will be eligible for parole on that date in 2027.
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