Queensland’s Supreme Court has been told Melissa Shaw, accused of murdering her fiancé Sam Dhody, was a victim of prolonged domestic violence.

Mr Dhody’s ex-partner Alara Van Niekerk told the court she and Ms Shaw had bonded in the months before the bankrupt businessman’s death in 2013.

Ms Van Niekerk alleged Ms Shaw had detailed Mr Dhody’s physical abuse to her over secret phone calls.

Ms Shaw allegedly said Mr Dhody had hit her with a coat hanger, a mobile phone, a ruler and a fist over the course of a year.

“I understood she was extremely unhappy and scared and would like to have left,” Ms Van Niekerk said.

Crown prosecutors allege Ms Shaw, a 30-year-old former sex worker, organised the attack with her lover Adam Gooley.

Gooley, a mechanic, was jailed in September last year with no parole for 20 years, after pleading guilty to shooting Mr Dhody in his bed at Gilston with a .22 calibre rifle on July 5, 2013.

In Ms Shaw's statement to police, she told them she had never seen the attacker before.

She pleaded not guilty to both accounts of the attempted murder in March and the murder in July.

Ms Van Niekerk said while Mr Dhody was never physically violent with her, he was emotionally and financially abusive, often threatening to withhold child support.

The court heard she saw him hide large amounts of cash around the house