Accused strangler’s chilling prison letters

Geelong man Jarrod Angus took his application for bail to the Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal on Thursday, but Justice Philip Priest was not satisfied the man should be released awaiting trial.

Mr Angus is facing charges relating to sometimes daily abuse of his ex-partner, including allegedly strangling her until she went limp, covering her face with a pillow, stalking her and cutting chunks out of her hair.

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He allegedly said to his victim “I almost killed you” after strangling her.

Yet he has allegedly sent the same woman about 100 pages of letters from custody, with messages of love and asking for forgiveness as well as anger and blame for him being in prison.

Prosecutor Sharn Coombes said the victim felt sick, anxious and frightened after receiving the letters.

She said there was a risk Mr Angus would interfere with a witness by intimidating the alleged victim if he was released into the community before the trial.

“Because the complainant is a person who is a victim of family violence, it might be apparent from the evidence that she is easily controlled by the applicant,” she said.

“It can also be viewed that these people are weaker and don’t have the ability to make complaints because of the control that is acted upon them by their perpetrator.”

Justice Priest said at least one of the letters “seems to be an attempt to intimidate” the woman regarding giving evidence in court about his alleged crimes.

Mr Barreiro said the woman had spoken on the phone with Mr Angus while he was in prison — but Justice Priest did not accept that necessarily weakened her credibility.

“It’s not all that unusual for women who are battered and abused to continually return to their abuser,” he said. “There’s nothing unusual about that at all. In fact, it’s often part of the syndrome.

“If the thrust of what you’re putting to me is that she did things that seem to be inconsistent with someone who seemed to be in fear, for example, I’d put the other side of the coin, which is that it’s not unusual, in the court’s experience, for women who have been battered and abused to reconcile with their abusers.”

Mr Angus was arrested on March 22, and defence lawyer Jonathan Barreiro said “it was safe to say” Mr Angus would be awaiting trial without being proven guilty of a crime for an “extraordinarily long” time.

He said it would be “years, not months” before Mr Angus could face a jury.

He said there had been no jury trials since March and no plans to resume jury trials in Victoria due to COVID-19.

“He (could) spend more time on remand than any ultimate sentence,” he said.

But Justice Priest was not satisfied that constituted exceptional circumstances.

Senior Constable Paul Harbert said during the hearing the alleged victim was “terrified” of Mr Angus and “believes she would be harmed and punished by him if he was released on bail”.

He said that police had facilitated a meeting between the alleged victim and Mr Angus while he was in custody.

“He started shouting at her and we had to stop the visit because he was screaming at her … he got so angry he actually punched the wall in our interview room,” Mr Harbert said.

Two witnesses spoke at the hearing in support of Mr Angus.

Mr Barreiro said the case was lacking corroborating evidence to the claims of abuse, such as medical evidence or witness statements, making it a “one-witness case”.

He said Mr Angus stopped sending letters after police became aware of them and put an intervention order in place.

Bail could be reconsidered at Mr Angus’s committal hearing in the Geelong Magistrates Court on November 11.

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