Ex-AFL rookie Shem Tatupu will spend at least the next seven and a half years behind bars for extreme physical violence against his former girlfriend, whom he chillingly warned “I let her get away, but not you,” in reference to a previous partner.
The 30-year-old brute, previously in line to play for Hawthorn Football Club, was sentenced to a maximum of 12 years and two months’ imprisonment on Monday for his horrific and protracted violence against his girlfriend in their Parkdale home last May.
Denouncing the monstrous attack as “horrific” and “abhorrent”, Justice James Elliott detailed how Tatupu repeatedly strangled his girlfriend—sometimes cutting off her air supply for up to a minute—and held her captive for hours before stabbing her so violently that the tip of his blade remains embedded in her skull.
“She was someone who you told you loved. You said you would always take care of her,” Justice Elliott said.
“Again this court is confronted with another domestic violence situation of a woman ending a relationship only to find the male disrespecting that decision and responding in a totally unacceptable manner.”
Hailed by the judge as strong and courageous, the victim-survivor spoke out after Tatupu’s sentencing, declaring, “justice was served”.
Disturbing new details were revealed about how Tatupu systematically isolated his victim from the outside world in a bid to control her and make her a “traditional woman”.
The court heard that after a month of dating, she moved into his home where questions began to arise about her messaging friends.
He later forbade her from speaking to people at the gym, discouraged her from seeing friends or family and then ordered she make the “ultimate sacrifice” and delete her social media.
“This was to make you happy and to prove her loyalty,” Justice Elliott said.
“She was also pressured to give up her job as a dental nurse so she could act in accordance with your belief of what a traditional woman should do.
“You said you would provide for her and protect her.
“Over time that conduct made her feel like she was being suffocated and on a leash.”
The woman, now aged 24, was attacked the day she ended his control and broke up with him.
Over nine hours, she was strangled eight times, held captive, chased down with an 18.5cm kitchen knife and repeatedly stabbed in the back of the head in the presence of police while facedown, half-dressed and helpless in a neighbour’s garage.
“It’s not surprising that she feared for her life,” Justice Elliott said.
“She was no match for your physical strength and you used that to your advantage.”
So violent was his attack that his mother also ended up in hospital with injuries to her hands trying to protect her son’s girlfriend from being stabbed.
Tatupu had a history of violence against women and was serving a community corrections order he’d been handed just weeks earlier for assaulting an ex-partner.
That woman had been pushed, thrown on to a bed, hit in the eye with keys and had her phone smashed by Tatupu before she managed to escape him.
Disturbingly, he told his new girlfriend during the Parkdale assault: “I let her get away but not you.”
The judge said Tatupu’s prospects for rehabilitation were “guarded” and that he continued to show a concerning lack of insight into his violence, sparked by false accusations of infidelity.
“You appear to be unable to understand how you were wrong to hold the misconceived beliefs about her from which founded your false accusations,” Justice Elliott said
“Perversely, you described a sense of relief after you attacked her because it felt like a weight off your shoulders.”
Justice Elliott set a non-parole period of nine years, meaning Tatupu could be free from prison by early 2034 with time served.
The sentence was handed down in a courtroom packed with friends and family of both Tatupu and his victim-survivor.