A man jailed for breaking into a house and intimidating a woman who subsequently died in a car crash in Yanco has had his prison time extended by three months after being sentenced for a separate offence in Griffith Local Court last Thursday .

Dean Cluney, 33, had previously been handed a two-year and 10-month prison sentence for offences committed against Tania Murphy, 36, and another woman on April 5 2023.

Soon after these offences, Ms Murphy fled her home and was killed in a car crash alongside her two sons and nephew when her vehicle hit a pole and rolled into a water channel at Yanco.

Cluney faced Griffith Court on Thursday via video conference from custody after pleading guilty to intentionally choking without consent and intimidating a different woman in a separate offence that occurred a month before the crash – in the early hours of March 9 2023.

For these two offences, he was convicted and sentenced to a total of 18 months prison with a non-parole period of nine months.

Some of this sentence will be served concurrently as his previous sentence relating to Ms Murphy, so his jail time will not be extended by the full nine months.

Previously, he was eligible to be released on parole by September 4 2024, but the new sentence means he will have to remain in jail until at least January 4 2025.

According to the agreed facts of the case, the offences occurred after an argument in a Yanco residence with a woman.

The court was told he grabbed her by the hair, shoved her and placed his arms around her throat. Cluney then took out a knife and threatened her.

Magistrate Khan accepted that the offending was spontaneous and in the heat of the moment rather than planned but said this would have little impact on his judgment.

“Too much violence against women is in the heat of the moment,” he said.

The magistrate considered Cluney’s history of deprivation and abuse and neglect as a child, saying the sentence would otherwise have been much longer. He also took into account the defendant’s good behaviour in prison up until now and drug and alcohol treatment.

Magistrate Khan also imposed a two-year Apprehended Violence Order (AVO) on Cluney, which will prevent him from having any contact with his female victim during that time.  

This article appeared in the  Narrandera Argus, 30 May 2024.