A man has been jailed for abandoning his blind, hearing-impaired girlfriend in remote bushland south of Alice Springs after badly beating her.
Kenneth Mututa, then 53, punched his girlfriend in the face, leaving her with a cut lip and a loose tooth, before ditching her in a remote stretch of bushland near Alice Springs in November 2015.
Mututa was sentenced this week to two years and six months jail when he pleaded guilty to two aggravated assaults and for failing to provide his girlfriend, 36, with the necessities of life, the NT News reports.
The badly beaten woman, who suffers from end-stage renal failure and required immediate dialysis treatment, fell asleep and only woke to a passing train later that night.
The woman, described in court as ‘lost, helpless and completely vulnerable’ tried to make her way back to safety by walking towards the sound of the train and following the tracks back into town.
When she reached the tracks she turned in the wrong direction and inadvertently walked further out into the desert.
She was only discovered when she was almost hit by a second train, which ultimately stopped to help her.
Speaking in the Supreme Court this week, Justice Trevor Riley said Mututa’s crime was ‘particularly callous’.
‘It was mere good fortune that she was not killed or badly injured,’ Justice Riley said.
‘Had the train not arrived, and the operators been so observant, she could easily have perished while walking south rather than north.’
MORE HERE: Man jailed abandoned blind girlfriend Alice Springs desert | Daily Mail Online
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