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By SJA Jafri (Bureau Chief Australia)
MELBOURNE: An Indian-born Australian man who stabbed his new Melbourne wife to death after Australia Day drinks has been sentenced to 25 years behind bars.
Supreme Court Justice Lesley Ann Taylor today sentenced Douglas Derick Eustace, 44, to a minimum of 20-years for actions she described as “brutal and utterly senseless”.
Eustace met Mary Freeman while on holiday and proposed to her within weeks so he could return from India to live in Australia.
Ms Freeman, 41, soon became unhappy in her new marriage and the pair slept in single beds as tensions rose, the Supreme Court had been told.
Less than four months after their wedding, Eustace fatally stabbed Ms Freeman 12 times at her Hallam home, shortly after midnight on January 27, 2017.
The court heard Eustace retrieved a long knife from the kitchen before a loud argument ensued.
Eustace told police he then found Freeman in the bathroom flicking a small green knife.
“Oh so that’s the way you want to play? Let’s play,” Eustace then said before launching his attack causing multiple serious injuries including a 10cm stab wound that penetrated her liver.
After the killing, Eustace handed himself into police, casually smoking a cigarette while telling people outside the station that he’d stabbed his wife.
He pleaded guilty in September to her murder.
Eustace will be deported to India at the conclusion of his sentence.
Ms Freeman’s daughter, 16-year-old Joanna Selvam, wept as she read a statement to court at an earlier plea hearing.
“The person my mother was supposed to trust was just a facade,” she said.
“I can’t call you a man.”
