The man he was talking about in the Supreme Court on Thursday cannot be identified so as to protect his three young children. There was nothing spontaneous or sudden about the killing, Justice Lasry told the court, and after a history of emotional and physical violence against his wife, the man tortured and killed her in their Melbourne home on June 17, 2016. Justice Lasry could not accept beyond reasonable doubt he was primarily motivated by his extreme Islamic beliefs, nor that he was in a drug-induced psychosis at the time. After slashing his wife's face, the man ripped her right eye from its socket and cut off some of her fingers. He inflicted further degradation too graphic to report. He did all of this in front of the children.

Justice Lasry said the man's wife essentially bled to death, but given the number of injuries from different weapons, it was hard to say what caused her to die. One of his children described the killing as a slaughter. Her body was wrapped in plastic and placed in the boot of the family car before her husband drove, with the children, to a nearby suburb to dump her. His children later told homicide squad detectives that their father sat on the boot of the car, as if ‘‘waiting to see if Mummy got up’’. He then bought the children pastries and soft drinks with their mother’s bank card. A passer-by found her later that day.

Detectives could not tell what gender she was, let alone identify who she was, because of what had been done to her. Neither her DNA, nor her fingerprints, were on the police's system, so it took a phone call from a concerned neighbour for homicide investigators to identify her. It is understood a neighbour went to local police to report concerns that the children had been mistreated. When police went to the home, they noticed the children showed signs of injury. They were all bruised, one of them had crusted blood around the ears, another had defensive injuries to the arm. Their father, arrested that day, was evasive when they asked him where his wife was.

The lounge room was furnished with milk crates, and mattresses in the bedroom were soiled with urine. And the woman's husband, a disability pensioner, later on refused to acknowledge that he had done anything wrong, telling police his ‘‘country was at war with Australia’’. Despite evidence he was using the drug ice, and his radical beliefs, Justice Lasry could not accept they were primary motives for the man's crime. His wife, whom he met through an arranged marriage, had come to Australia from the Middle East some years ago. He controlled all aspects of her life, including what she wore, Justice Lasry told the court. Her family, including her sister and mother, provided victim impact statements to the court. None wanted their statements read publicly, but Justice Lasry said it was clear her death has had a dramatic impact.