Jail for attack on wife

Man sentenced over ‘violent’ assault on pregnant spouse

A CHUDLEIGH man who committed a “very bad, sustained and violent attack” on his pregnant wife last year has been sentenced to nine months in prison.

Gaurav Endlay, 41, was sentenced yesterday for one count of common assault and one count of emotional abuse over the “prolonged” and “terrifying” attack on Parule Bhatt at their Chudleigh home on September 31.

Magistrate Simon Brown found the charges proven after

Endlay pleaded not guilty to both last year and the matters went to hearing at Launceston Magistrates Court.

A further allegation of assault dating back to between February and March 2019 was dismissed by Magistrate Brown, who said there were no “objective or reliable sources” to support the charge.

The details of the proven assault charge were that Endlay grabbed his wife by her hair and dragged her through their Chudleigh home, sat on her stomach, grabbed her by the throat and choked her, punched her in the face and deprived her of her liberty.

The emotional abuse charge included that Endlay told his wife he would kill her and throw her in a jungle, f... her mother, that she caused her father’s fatal cancer, and that she could strangle her baby. He also controlled the way she slept.

Sentencing Endlay yesterday, Magistrate Brown said: “The defendant assaulted his pregnant wife very badly.”

Magistrate Brown said the fact that Endlay was aware of his wife’s pregnancy at the time of the “risky” assault, was an aggravating factor.

Endlay’s lawyer Jessica Stewart previously submitted that Magistrate Brown should take into account 18 months Endlay spent in custody without conviction after the death of his baby daughter from a previous marriage in 2016.

He was charged in relation to ill treatment of the child, but the charges were dropped.

A coroner later found Endlay was responsible for his daughter’s death.

Ms Stewart said Endlay should be sentenced to no more than time served. Magistrate Brown said he did not accept that the time he served for an alleged offence from four years ago could be “used as a bank of days” for later offending.

He sentenced Endlay to nine months’ imprisonment backdated to October 3 – when he was taken into custody.

He made a 12-month family violence order including the terms that Endlay not be in contact with his child, due to be born in six weeks, without the supervision of a Child Services Child Safety Plan.