At the District Court, Simon Alan Davis received a sentence of 11 years and 6 months in jail with an eight years and 6 months non-parole period.
A guy was put behind bars for attacking his wife in a furious rage because he thought she had been unfaithful.
A man who repeatedly slashed and stabbed his police officer wife because he thought she had been unfaithful will spend the most of the next ten years in prison.
When Simon Alan Davis’ wife joined the NSW Police Force in 2019, he experienced acute envy and became fixated on the idea that she had been unfaithful.
The 51-year-old was found guilty of violating an apprehended violence order and inflicting bodily harm with the intent to kill.
On March 1, 2021, Davis’s wife Tina paid him a visit with the intention of divorcing him. He then wanted to see her phone.
When she declined, he pulled out a kitchen knife from his back pocket, pursued her down the street, and in a fit of rage slashed and stabbed her in the neck.
“In the drive, I asked my wife to show me her phone, and when she didn’t, I wanted to kill myself. After the encounter, Davis said in a therapist, “I wanted to know if she loved me.
A witness described the attacker yelling profanity at the victim while neighbours ran out to position themselves between the two and try to calm Davis.
Before she fled into a neighbor’s house and the door was bolted, he was able to retake her and stab her numerous times in the neck.
Before leaving the scene, Davis cut himself with the knife.
Judge Huw Baker of the District Court branded the assault as “persistent, sustained, and extremely violent” on Thursday.
It was less violent than earlier attacks of this kind, but it was more due to good fortune than the perpetrator’s actions, he claimed.
Davis’ mental health and whether mental illness had a part in his acts were topics of discussion between the Crown and the defence during the trial.
Davis admitted to psychiatrists that while he had fantasies about hurting himself and his wife, he didn’t mean to murder her; rather, he just wanted to stab her repeatedly as a warning.
Three forensic psychiatrists testified in court, but they couldn’t agree on the man’s mental state.
His diagnosis ranged from having no acute mental disease to adjustment disorder, depression, and anxiety.
Judge Baker stated that he was unable to identify Davis’ problem at the time of the offence.
He sentenced the 51-year-old to 11 years and 6 months in jail with a non-parole period of 8 years and 6 months, taking into account both the need for general deterrence and the fact that his diminished moral culpability was a result of his mental state.
“The dissolution of the marriage cannot be used to justify the violence when domestic violence is involved before the courts,” he stated.
Domestic violence’s pervasiveness and the harm it causes the neighbourhood must be condemned.
Davis’s wife obtained numerous restraining orders as their marriage broke down, but they were routinely broken in the days before the attack.
In August 2029, Davis will be qualified for conditional release.
