‘PROTECTOR BECAME MY PREDATOR’
Ex-girlfriend’s hell since violent 16-hour ordeal
A FAR Northern woman reveals she is still haunted by the memory of being violently snatched from her own bed in a horror attack by her ex-boyfriend.
“I will never understand why you did what you did while you told me you loved me,” she bravely told Daniel Lewis Matthew Rooney in a powerful speech in the Cairns Supreme Court.
“You went from being my protector to my predator overnight.”
Speaking out for the first time yesterday about the harrowing ordeal, the young woman said she was reminded of the traumatic incident every day.
“I feel like I can’t escape it,” she said.
“You went and hurt me when I was in my most vulnerable state, asleep and in my home.”
Rooney punched her unconscious in June 2017 before taking her on a 16-hour horror car ride – then he ran the car off the Kuranda Range.
“I thought I was going to die and I couldn’t do anything to stop it,” she said.
“After the assault I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror, I would just cry at what you had done to my face.”
The crash resulted in fractures to her back and extensive bruising.
“I’m in pain every day… (and) I will live with these painful memories for the rest of my life,” she said. “I’m scared of the day that you’re let out.
“I wish I never met you.”
A FORMER Port Douglas chef could face up to 12 years’ jail after he terrorised and bashed his ex-girlfriend before a violent abduction from her own bed.
Daniel Lewis Matthew Rooney has pleaded guilty to 29 charges – the majority of which relate to the terrifying ordeal on June 14, 2017 at Port Douglas.
He lashed out after she ended their 18-month relationship. First Rooney stalked her for a month, including choking her unconscious, breaking into her house several times, waiting outside her parents’ home, calling her work and creating a fake social media account.
Then 24, Rooney put the young woman through about 16 hours of terror that ended with Rooney deliberately driving a vehicle, with them both inside, off the Kuranda Range while saying “I’m sorry”.
Crown prosecutor Nigel Rees told the Cairns Supreme Court that Rooney has “snubbed his nose” at a protection order and bail conditions when, in a premeditated act of violence, he snatched the young woman from her own bed after punching her with such force she wet her pants.
“A person’s home is their castle and they are entitled to feel safe,” Mr Rees said.
“He was armed with a knife when he left his home in Kewarra (Beach) … he further armed himself when in the house.”
Mr Rees has pushed for a jail term of 10 to 12 years meaning Rooney would have to serve at least 80 per cent. He also argued for a serious violent offence declaration to be made even if the penalty was less than 10 years, which would also result in Rooney serving 80 per cent of the term.
Defence barrister Peter Feeney, instructed by Osborne Butler Lawyers, argued that nine years with parole eligibility at 50 per cent or more was also in range.
Mr Feeney said Rooney, who had been in custody since his arrest in June 2017, had been productive while in jail. “There were other aspects of his life that … put him in the position of being isolated from what was important to him,” Mr Feeney said.
The court heard he had also lost his job a couple of weeks before the breakup.
“He was fairly young at the time and he’s still fairly young,” Mr Feeney said.
Justice James Henry adjourned sentence until March 12 so he could take some time to consider his penalty.