A Victorian man who staged his estranged wife's murder as a suicide in what a judge has described as "the ultimate act of family violence" has been sentenced to life in prison.
Warning: This story contains graphic content that may disturb some readers.
Adrian James Basham brutally bashed and murdered Samantha Fraser at Cowes on Phillip Island in July 2018.
Wearing white ribbons, Ms Fraser's family and friends audibly gasped in the Supreme Court of Victoria as her estranged husband was ordered to spend at least 30 years behind bars.
A jury took less than two days to find the 46-year-old guilty of Ms Fraser's murder last year.
Basham was charged in August 2017 with raping Ms Fraser during their marriage and was due to give evidence against him a week after she was murdered.
Handing down her sentence, Justice Lesley Taylor said Basham had "executed" Ms Fraser after she found the courage to defy him.
The court heard Ms Fraser returned from dropping her three children at school when Basham beat her in the garage of the home they once shared, leaving 41 separate blunt force injuries.
He tied a noose around her neck and hanged her from the garage door, staging her killing as a suicide.
Her body was later discovered in the garage after she failed to pick up her children from school.
An 'objectively heinous' crime
Justice Taylor said Basham likely surprised Ms Fraser as she sat in the driver's seat of her car, having waited more than two hours in the garage for her to return home.
"You intended and planned for Ms Fraser to die," Justice Taylor told Basham.
"Her last conscious moments would have passed in terror," Justice Taylor said.
"You made some attempt to stage the scene as a suicide.
"You still maintain a palpable fiction that she's responsible for her own death."
Basham wore a neat white shirt and chino pants as he sat quietly facing the judge, at times shaking his head.
"Ms Fraser lived in abject fear of you, both during the relationship and after you had separated," Justice Taylor said.
"She told friends and professionals she was terrified of you."
Justice Taylor told Basham: "Your crime was objectively heinous, it was the ultimate act of family violence."
Hopes sentence acts as 'strong benchmark' for DV offenders
Ms Fraser's daughter was red-eyed and stony faced as she watched her father react to his sentence for her mother's murder.
Now a teenager, her eldest daughter said nothing would compare to the damage Basham had done to her and her family's lives.
"He murdered my mum. He took Sammy's life and in doing so destroyed so many others," she said.
Leaving the court, Basham lingered for a moment to look back at his daughter, who was surrounded by family and friends.
Their children were aged five, seven and nine when Ms Fraser was killed.
Speaking to media outside, Ms Fraser's father, who is now a primary caregiver for his grandchildren, said justice had been served.
"It's been a long and drawn-out process," he said.
Ms Fraser's friends said they "mostly want to remember Sam" but welcomed Basham's sentence.
"We hope it's a strong benchmark," they said of sentencing for family violence offenders.
One friend, Lija Matthews, said the sentence was a "good result" under the circumstances, after a "pretty intense" period of more than four years.
"I feel that him getting life, look, it's never going to be long enough really," she said.
"Sam's never going to be able to live her life and we all got a life sentence when we have to live without her.
"It just means we feel a bit safer with him off the streets and hopefully it's a bit of a deterrent for other people that the maximum sentence is out there.
"We have started a foundation that is Change For Sam that is helping to end family violence — that's the only real positive that I can see making a positive out of the worst negative ever.
"I try to block the horror, you can't block it completely.
"Sam will always be in our hearts regardless of what happened."
With time already served, Basham will be eligible for parole in 2050.
ABC/AAP
