A “monster” who abused a woman and tortured her pets during a three-month relationship will be sentenced next month.
Jacob Kevin Scott Riley-McDonald used a number of sickening attacks on two pets to manipulate and torment the woman last year.
Riley-McDonald poured a fluid down her dog Ruby’s throat, put carpet cleaner in the dog’s eyes, punched it, kicked it and hit it with a golf club.
Ruby eventually died.
He threw the woman’s cat into a table leg three times.
His former partner had alleged he also placed the cat in a toilet and stabbed it in the face with scissors.
In tears on the witness stand in April, Riley-McDonald’s former girlfriend – who Fairfax Tasmania has chosen not to name – said he became enraged after seeing text messages from the woman’s former lover.
She said he burnt her with an iron, oxy torch and a crack pipe as a result.
He also poured hot coffee on her, punched her, choked her and told her he would rape her, the woman alleged.
He is charged with 11 counts of assault, three counts of an act likely to cause pain to an animals, and one count of an act resulting in the death of an animal.
He was found guilty.
Magistrate Reg Marron said Riley-McDonald was “one minute the monster, next minute the apologetic partner”.
It was expected Riley-McDonald would be sentenced on Thursday, but a number of reports used to guide the magistrate’s sentencing decision had not yet made their way to defence lawyer James Oxley.
Relief lawyer for Riley-McDonald, Alan Hensley, called the situation “unfortunate”.
“For reasons completely unknown, Mr Oxley has been unable (to go through a number of reports),” Mr Hensley said.
Mr Marron said he had seen at least one of the reports, which he described at “complimentary” of Riley-McDonald.
The 25-year-old responded by telling Mr Marron he had completed a number of new courses in prison, in an effort to show he could be rehabilitated.
Riley-McDonald also told the court he was now housed in Risdon Prison’s minimum security wing and worked as a baker.
He will be sentenced on November 10.
