The battered husband who snapped
Anthony Sherna killed his partner after suffering years of abuse, writes Ian Munro in the Sydney Morning Herald.
For almost 20 years he submitted in order to keep the peace. When she demanded he change his surname to prove he loved her, he agreed. When she insisted he not see his friends or family, he complied. When she taunted him by resuming an affair with a former boyfriend and suggested he "grow some balls", he swallowed the insults. When she said he was too smelly to use the toilet at home, he restrained himself until he arrived at work. When she refused to let him sleep in their double bed, he dossed down in the spare room on a camp stretcher.
He was sole breadwinner but she rationed his cigarettes - just 12 each day - and controlled their money. Each week after withdrawing the housekeeping money he handed over the cash, his ATM card and receipts. Now, compliant as ever, Anthony Sherna, 41, is in the Homicide Squad offices with nothing to hide. "I then lost my temper," he tells detective Nigel L'Estrange. "I lost my temper, and I strangled her with the dressing-gown cord until she could no longer breathe."
