A Darwin judge has questioned what society has become "if we do not try to help each other", during the sentencing of a man who bashed his wife to death while witnesses watched on.

Conway Stevenson, 29, was sentenced to 14 years in prison after bashing his wife Terasita Bigfoot, 29, to death in a five-hour prolonged attack in 2013 at an Aboriginal community in Darwin on November 26, 2013.

He had pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter.

In sentencing, Justice Judith Kelly took the unusual step of allowing television cameras to relay the sentencing live to air in an attempt to highlight domestic violence.

Justice Kelly said she would use the victim's name, a practice normally avoided when referring to deceased Aboriginal people because of cultural protocol.

"I intend using Terasita's name, this is not intended to be disrespectful — she deserves to have a name and for someone to tell her story," Justice Kelly said as she thanked the woman's family for permission.

She said the family of Ms Bigfoot had suffered "grief, worry, pain and confusion" because of her death at the hands of Stevenson at Darwin's Bagot community.

Justice Kelly said on the night Ms Bigfoot died "many people" at the community and "also people passing by ... saw and heard Conway Stevenson abusing and bashing Terasita Bigfoot, but no-one helped her".

She revealed at least four people witnessed Stevenson's brutal and prolonged assault, but did nothing.

"The woman who saw you dragging Terasita and stomping on her stomach didn't try to help Terasita, she didn't try to stop you and she did not call the police," Justice Kelly said.

"No-one tried to stop him and no-one called the police.

"What are we, what have we become if we do not try to help each other when terrible things like this are happening?"

'Stop hitting me, I love you'

Stevenson told police who arrested him in 2013 that he had punched his wife "real hard" in the face six to eight times, kicked her face and hit her with a stick that was "not that big".

Stevenson said Ms Bigfoot was "bleeding like full mad" and screaming for help. He then jumped on his wife's face four times and punched her in the stomach very hard.

In sentencing Conway Stevenson, Justice Judith Kelly said the sentence needed to send a message that drunken violence would not be tolerated. ( ABC News: Felicity James )

Stevenson was the subject of a domestic violence order brought by his wife at the time of the attack.

Stevenson had drunk two two-litre casks of wine that day and shared another with friends in the evening before approaching his wife and asking her to go home with him.

When she refused, Stevenson attacked her with a crate.

Later the same evening Ms Bigfoot approached a community bus that had stopped in Bagot and told the driver and passengers she had been hurt.

Witnesses say Ms Bigfoot then took off her clothes and sat naked in the street. She did not respond when the driver offered to take her somewhere else.

Witnesses saw Ms Bigfoot following her husband later in the evening. She was heard telling Stevenson "stop hitting me, I love you", while he was assaulting her.

He told police his wife "was singing out for help but I just walked away. She make me angry because she wouldn't go with me".

"I was angry with her because she went off with her cousin and drink with her. I want her to go home and sleep with me," he said.

In court, Justice Kelly addressed Stevenson directly.

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"It doesn't matter if your wife disagrees with you. It doesn't matter if she doesn't do what you want her to do. It's not right to bash her and it is as wrong as it can be to bash her to death," she said.

"You left her naked, dying in the dark, alone."

Attack on wife lasted five hours

Justice Kelly said Stevenson was not a man of good character.

"This is not the first time you bashed Terasita. You have four convictions for aggravated assault and one for breaching a domestic violence order," she said.

"Each time the victim was Terasita and each assault followed a similar pattern.

Housing at the Bagot Aboriginal community, in Darwin. ( ABC News: Michael Coggan )

"You would get drunk. Usually Terasita had been drinking too. You would tell her to go home or to come with you and when she didn't you would bash her savagely, usually with a weapon."

The assault on Ms Bigfoot began at 5:00pm and continued intermittently until 10:00pm, when he left her unconscious on the ground and returned home to sleep. He returned to his wife's body at sunrise and discovered she was dead.

Ms Bigfoot's death was not reported to police until 6:30am, when Patsy Rose, Stevenson's grandmother, called triple-zero to report the death.

A breath test of Stevenson returned a reading of 0.166 per cent the morning after he assaulted his wife.

The autopsy found she had a broken jaw, two broken ribs and a ruptured bowel.

Justice Kelly told the court alcohol-fuelled violence was "far too common in our community".

Stevenson will be eligible for parole in eight years' time.