Crown prosecutor Andrew Moore outlined the ferocity and surprise of the attack when police accompanied Hudson’s partner to collect her belongings and two children from a house in Healey Close last August.

But she had phoned ahead to tell him what was happening and he reacted with rage.

Hudson believed he had lost everything and later said he wanted police to shoot him.

Mr Moore said in the County Court at Wodonga that the woman, then 21, was entitled to feel safe in police company.

But Hudson simply ignored the two police officers present and embarked on a frenzied attack.

“He is lucky he did not kill her,” Judge James Montgomery said after hearing the circumstances of the attack.

Hudson, 23, pleaded guilty to intentionally causing serious injury and possessing cannabis.

Four other summary charges of using a controlled weapon without lawful excuse, wilful damage to a police vehicle and two counts of resisting arrest will be taken into consideration in sentencing.

Mr Moore said Hudson’s partner, Beverley Dixon, was the victim of an escalating regime of domestic violence.

They had been together for five years and had two children aged five and four.

Ms Dixon went to police seeking assistance to move her out and two officers accompanied her in an unmarked station wagon.

Police parked outside the house, got out and the victim remained in the back seat.

Mr Moore said Hudson ran from the house past police brandishing a knife, ignored directives to put it down and began attacking Ms Dixon in the car.

He stabbed her repeatedly, one officer fired a shot at him which missed and lodged in the car.

There was a struggle with police, who used capsicum spray and after a violent fight the officers managed to get him out of the vehicle.

Ms Dixon suffered stab wounds to her right arm, chest and back which needed stitches.

“She effectively suffered in silence and in the end she had had enough,” Mr Moore said.

Mr Moore said no criticism could be directed at police.

“The police seem to have been taken by surprise by the ferocity of the attack,” he said.

“It was a brazen attack on a defenceless woman.”

Mr Moore suggested there should be a non-parole period in jail of three to four years.