Jailed for ‘jealous’ attack

Man beat ex-girlfriend’s new friend with axe handle while victim slept

A JEALOUS North-West man who attacked his pregnant exgirlfriend’s new friend with an axe handle as the pair slept in bed has been jailed for three years.

Dale John Archer, 45, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated burglary and one count of assault after the attack in May this year.

Archer and the woman were in a relationship from 2017 until April this year, but the pair maintained contact and he continued to stay at her home.

Both Archer and the woman believed the woman was pregnant with his child at the time.

On May 5, the woman arranged to meet her ex-husband’s cousin at a bar, with the pair spending the night drinking together.

But some time after 9pm, Archer turned up and became “agitated” that she was “entertaining another man”.

Half an hour later, he returned to the woman’s home in a taxi, telling the driver to park a distance away from the house and wait for him.

Armed with an axe handle, Archer entered the house to find the pair asleep in the woman’s bed.

The man woke to Archer hitting his head with what felt like “a log of wood” before he was repeatedly struck to the arm and leg.

During the five-minute attack, Archer called the woman “a cheating slut” then jumped back into the waiting taxi.

The victim went to the Mersey Community Hospital with cuts, bruising and a fractured left shinbone.

The following afternoon, Archer turned himself in to police.

While sentencing last week in the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen Estcourt said the woman had experienced “severe anxiety” since the attack.

“She has in effect had to change her life, leave her children with their father and move interstate,” he said. “Her nineyear-old son witnessed the assault and her 12-year-old daughter was also present.”

Justice Estcourt said the victim suffers from nightmares of waking up to someone hitting his head and body, and said the attack was “born of a jealous loss of control”.

He jailed Archer for three years, with a non-parole period of 18 months.