A drunk man who beat his wife as she lay in bed next to their young daughter has lost an appeal against a one-year prison sentence, which he argued was "manifestly excessive".
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The offender entered the home while the mother and her five-year-old child were asleep in bed one night in November last year.
The pair had broken up two months earlier, and the man had a history of family violence.
He went into the bedroom, pinned her down, put his fingers up her nose, and wrenched her head back.
The girl begged him to stop as he struck her repeatedly in the face.
"Stop daddy, stop," she said, according to court documents.
He smashed the bedroom door off its hinges, and the couple's 13-year-old daughter called police, fearing for her mother's safety.
In sentencing the man to 12 months imprisonment, with eight to serve, Magistrate Karen Fryar described family violence as a "pernicious evil" that stems from attitudes to women, rather than alcohol or problems with anger management.
Ms Fryar said the attack was "brutal and violent", unprovoked, and an attempt to exert power and control over the victim.
The man tried to shift blame to the victim, had little prospects of rehabilitation, and tried to minimise his own responsibility for the attack.
He also had a history of violence against the same woman, which had resulted in two previous convictions.
The offender appealed the sentence, arguing it was manifestly excessive.
His main argument was that Ms Fryar failed to consider weekend detention as an option, despite him being assessed as suitable, and had not given proper weight to his compliance with bail conditions.
The man also argued that the last two times he was convicted of domestic violence, he had not received a custodial sentence.
He suggested his third conviction had taken an oversized incremental step to full-time imprisonment.
The prosecution, represented by Amanda Clarke, disputed those arguments.
Ms Clarke said the magistrate had clearly stated that nothing other than full-time imprisonment was suitable.
She argued the crime was aggravated by the breach of trust, the particular vulnerability of the victim, the violence being witnessed by children, and the man's breaching of an earlier good behaviour order imposed after violence against the same victim.
"The presence of the two children during the offences placed the children in physical danger and witnessing the violence creates psychological trauma as stated by the Learned Magistrate in her reasoning," Ms Clarke said in her written submissions.
"Children by their very nature and size are particularly vulnerable to injury, and the action of the Appellant in placing these children at risk was a factor of aggravation."
The ACT Supreme Court dismissed the appeal last week.
Acting Justice David Robinson said the sentence imposed was open to the magistrate on the evidence before her.
"I can see no error," he wrote.
"The sentence is not one... where the result embodied in the order was unreasonable or plainly unjust."
