Sue didn’t hesitate to begin the separation process after her husband of 15 years stabbed her in the chest. But she couldn’t have predicted what happened next.
Sue didn’t hesitate to begin the separation process after her husband of 15 years stabbed her in the chest. But she couldn’t have predicted what happened next.
By Rebecca Peppiatt
May 26, 2025 — 3.00am
Sue* didn’t even think she was in an abusive relationship until the night her husband of 15 years stabbed her in the chest with a kitchen knife.
They had been socialising with friends in May 2020, hosting a dinner party in their Palmyra home when, after their guests had left, the man leant over his wife with a knife and, saying nothing, held it against her neck.
There had been no argument, no build-up, no exchange of bad words.
Sue didn’t move or scream. She thought he was going to kill her.
“I thought, ‘What the hell? What do I do now?’” she said.
“So then I just started talking to him. He was breathing really heavily, he didn’t say anything. He kind of pushed the knife sort of up against my neck, and then scraped it along. And then I was trying to grab the knife. I grabbed the blade.”
Sue cut her hand on the knife as she was trying to pull it away from her neck.
She told her husband that if he killed her, he’d never see his grandson again.
“I said … ‘If you kill me now, you’re going to go to jail. Nobody’s going to be here. It’s going to be a mess for everyone,’” Sue said.
Her husband responded, “you’ve pushed me too far,” before he pushed the knife into her chest.
Moments later, Sue managed to get away and, with “blood everywhere”, ran through the garage, down the driveway and on to the street where she yelled and screamed for help.
At 1am, her neighbours ran into the street, and the police and an ambulance arrived within minutes.
She underwent surgery for a 4-centimetre wide, 1-centimetre deep wound to her chest, which luckily avoided any vital organs.
Court transcripts reveal her husband told paramedics and police at the scene “this has been coming”.
“I could have killed her three or four times while all this shit was going on,” he told police.
The man claimed at the time he could not recall the incident, and admitted drinking large quantities of alcohol while on prescription painkillers, which was his only explanation.
He was arrested and charged with one count of intended harm doing an act as a result of which bodily harm was caused.
In February, he was jailed for 4½ years after pleading guilty.
There were other assaults, Sue said, but charges over those were dropped due to lack of evidence.
Her husband initially pleaded not guilty, so the court process was protracted. The wait for justice was as debilitating for Sue as the assault itself.
But, wanting to separate herself as quickly as possible from her husband, she embarked upon property settlement and divorce proceedings.
She had been the main breadwinner, ran a successful real estate business, and brought property and good financial standing to the relationship at the start.
She thought given the violent assault, she would leave with most of her assets intact.
She was wrong.
Sue was ordered by a Family Court judge to pay her estranged husband spousal maintenance at $400 a week and to pay for his car, mortgage and health insurance.
“That you could be treated like that, first of all, by someone, and then you have to support them? I couldn’t believe it,” she said.
“With the Family Court, the one who has the least gets the most.
“They would look at my earning capacity – I’m 15 years younger, I’ve got a business, I have all these things – you’re going to get penalised.”
Sue claims she was “gagged” in the Family Court from mentioning her husband’s criminal charges.
“I was just overruled. I wasn’t even allowed to speak,” she said.
“I just couldn’t deal with it … it forces you to give up because you feel so unfairly treated.”
Family Court law also prohibits Sue’s real identity from being published – “Sue” is a pseudonym used by this masthead – which she said makes her feel further victimised as she wanted her story told.
As the law stands, family violence is largely treated as a separate issue from financial proceedings in WA, unless it can be directly linked to financial loss.
Leach Legal chief executive Catherine Leach said this had led to situations where victims, even those who had suffered extreme violence, were not properly protected in property or maintenance decisions.
“The criminal conduct of an abuser may not be taken into account, leading to unjust outcomes that can further victimise survivors both emotionally and financially,” she said.
This will change on June 10, when a revised Family Law Act comes into effect.
Leach, whose firm specialises in family and divorce law, said for the first time, courts would be required to consider the financial consequences of family violence when determining property settlements and spousal maintenance and this would significantly strengthen protections for victims of domestic violence in family court.
“The new law will allow the court to factor in the economic harm caused by the abuse, and could result in perpetrators receiving a reduced share of assets or being denied maintenance,” she said.
“The broader definition of family violence, now encompassing coercive control and financial abuse, ensures courts will have a more complete understanding of the impact of abuse.”
In February, Sue was granted a lifetime violence restraining order protecting her from her now ex-husband, who was given a partially suspended sentence due to ill health.
From next February, he will serve the remainder of his sentence in the community.
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Rebecca Peppiatt – is a journalist with WAtoday, specialising in crime and courts.Connect via email.