By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A woman has miscarried hours after being allegedly kicked in the stomach by her boyfriend at a Dandenong caravan park, a court has heard.
The man, who was on a community corrections order for a violent public rampage, was refused bail at a hearing at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 13 August.
The 31-year-old meat factory worker denied the charges of false imprisonment, recklessly causing injury, criminal damage, assault and breaching a CCO.
His CCO was imposed the week before for punching the face of a stranger who was sitting with mates at a table at Zagame’s entertainment venue in Berwick on 27 March.
During the unprovoked attack, he yelled abuse, punched two TVs and crashed a chair on a table.
He had been convicted of a one-punch assault in the same venue in 2015.
Police told the court that the man and the victim often accused each other of cheating on one another.
Recently, he had allegedly thrown a coffee cup that struck her in the head after she answered a call from her ex-partner who had fathered her three children.
On a daily basis, he’d yelled abuse and insulted her, she told police.
During an abusive rage on 12 August at 2am, he threw her off the bed and shoved her backwards on the oven.
Two months pregnant, she pleaded with him to stop. He called her a ‘whore’ and kicked her in the stomach, causing her to fall to ground.
Later that day, at her request, he drove her to hospital due to stomach pains and bleeding.
During the drive, they fought and the man headed back to the caravan park.
Along the way, he punched her, pulled her by the hair and prevented her from escaping the car, police told the court.
She kicked out and scratched him with her fingers during the struggle, which was reported by witnesses at Princes Highway.
The accused was arrested at the caravan park. His partner was admitted to Dandenong Hospital where she miscarried.
In opposing bail, police labelled the man as a flight risk given most of his friends and family were in Queensland.
The man requested bail so he could contact his family and sort out his belongings, claiming he was “assaulted first” by the partner during the car trip.
He claimed the woman requested him to return home, and he’d tried to stop her from endangering herself by getting out of the car in front of traffic, he said.
Magistrate Tara Hartnett said the man showed no compelling reason for bail, and was an unacceptable risk of reoffending.
He was served with a full interim intervention order to protect the woman.
The man was remanded to appear at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 19 August.
