He only stopped when she started saying the names of their children.

Donovan, 31, was sentenced to two years in jail earlier this year for this and other violent assaults on his girlfriend at their Wangaratta home, but appealed the sentence this week because he claimed it was “manifestly excessive”.

Judge David Brookes told Wangaratta County Court on Thursday that Donovan was lucky to not receive more jail time for the charges including contravening an intervention order with harm and fear.

When the case returned to court on Friday, the appeal was abandoned.

The first serious offences occurred on October 17 last year when the victim was having a shower at the Cribbes Road home.

Donovan kicked in the front door, broke the bathroom door off its hinges, turned off the cold water to scald her and grabbed her hair to throw her naked to the ground in the hallway in front of his friend.

Crying and shaking, the woman called police and met them outside the house only covered in a towel.

Donovan was originally sentenced to a community correction order, but breached the order when he again assaulted her on May 21.

He punched her twice to the face, multiple times in the back of the head, then slammed her head against the wall.

“Don’t kill me, I don’t want to die,” she said.

Despite initially appearing remorseful, Donovan punched the woman to the floor again the next day and grabbed her throat until she passed out.

“There were some pretty nasty assaults in that period,” Judge Brookes said.

“The community thinks that this sort of thing, violence against women, people should go to jail.”

Defence barrister Fabian Brimfield had argued Donovan’s offending stemmed from his drug use, which had become worse after a redundancy in 2017.

Donovan has served more than eight months of his sentence so far and will be eligible for parole after 18 months.

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