A Wodonga man handed a nine-month jail sentence on Wednesday for a violent attack on his partner in central Albury had his victim supporting him in court.
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The mother-of-three also wrote a letter to say she was as much to blame for the incident as he as both were highly intoxicated at the time.
But magistrate Sally McLaughlin said she could not take anything from the letter - which implored the court to take a look at CCTV footage of the choking assault - as it ran contrary to the facts on which Justin Matthew Lavers pleaded guilty.
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Another referee letter, also submitted on sentencing by defence lawyer Graham Lamond, was in the same category and could not be given any weight, Ms McLaughlin said in Albury Local Court.
A further referee was his 16-year-old stepdaughter, who spoke of her love and support for him.
Regardless, Ms McLaughlin said she accepted Lavers was genuinely remorseful for what he did on the night of July 9 after the pair had been drinking - and arguing - at the SS&A Club.
"He clearly has insight in relation to the commission of the offences," she said, on imposing a non-parole period of five months that will have Lavers released from custody on December 9.
Ms McLaughlin said full-time jail was the only appropriate sentence. Lavers pleaded guilty to intimidation and intentionally choke a person with recklessness at his very first court appearance.
This was just two days after the attack.
The court had been told how Lavers first stalked his partner as she tried to walk away from him on leaving the club, then squeezed her throat with such force that she collapsed unconscious on to the footpath.
Lavers, 31, then walked away, with onlookers coming to the woman's aid.
She drifted in an out of consciousness, which Mr Lamond indicated on Wednesday might have been more a sign of heavy intoxication than her having been choked for one second, the latter included in the police facts before the court.
Mr Lamond drew issue with that time-frame as "there are other things going on with alcohol rather than questions of that one second".
Ms McLaughlin said these were serious examples of intimidation and choking, in a situation where "she was asking (him) to remove his hand".
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