Prebble told the court she and Screen had a series of disagreements in August 2021 over “silly” things, which led him to push her around, before picking up a piece of wood that had fallen off the bottom of the door and striking her on her side.
Screen pleaded guilty to a charge related to this incident, but through his lawyer Gerald McArthur denied striking her with wood, saying there had only been pushing.
Prebble said after being pushed out of the house she reported the incident to police. She returned to their Paeroa home later that day to pick up belongings but said Screen began “ranting and raving” about her going to police.
It’s alleged things then turned violent once more. She said she crawled under a half-open roller door to get into a shed area but he released the door on top of her, pinning her on her back with the door resting on her chest.
She described “screaming for help” and feeling “very scared” before he allowed her to go free. She then tried to retrieve some belongings from her study but said Screen walked in holding a black T-shirt “like a pad”.
In a statement to police, she said he walked in and said “Are you ready to die? This is it, I’m going to do it.”
She told the court he held her face into the T-shirt and pinned her head against the arm of a chaise-lounge in her study area, preventing her from breathing. She gave evidence that he was making “strange noises” and she “knew he really meant it” and “wanted to kill” her.
Prebble said she doesn’t recall how she got free, whether she wriggled away or was released, but recalls stumbling back out through the roller door and into the garden before returning to the same police station again.
Crown Prosecutor Larissa Mulder said this incident, which resulted in a charge of strangulation, was the “last straw” and led to Prebble reporting a decade of alleged abuse.
Prebble said she couldn’t remember many of the details of the disagreements that led to the alleged assaults since 2011, and her recollection of the specifics of injuries were often hazy.
She also couldn’t remember what had prompted an argument that caused him to allegedly drag her across the carpet and smash her head against a tiled floor at least twice. She thought that incident may have caused temporary deafness, but said she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t from a different blow to the head.
Prebble said that incident, and another where he had grabbed her around the throat, were two instances that made her fear he might kill her.
Prebble told the court she had misled many of the doctors and nurses who had treated some of her injuries as to their cause, as she’d wanted to keep it covered up.
The court will hear from some of those who treated her as the trial continues this week.
In his cross-examination, which will continue when the trial resumes, Screen’s lawyer put to Prebble that her failure to call police following the “horrific assaults” was because they hadn’t happened in the first place.
He asked her why she chose the seemingly less violent incident in 2021 as the point at which to make a report.
She said she had previously been too frightened of retribution but by 2021 she’d had enough, and was worried his behaviour was getting worse.
McArthur also questioned why, if the relationship had already become violent, Prebble had chosen to sell her family home and move to a new town with the defendant during the period of the alleged ongoing offending.
Prebble said there had been “months” between incidents and there were periods where things were okay.
“Sometimes life was good, but sometimes life was very bad.”
The trial continues today.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.
