Daryll Cook: DV monster behind years of horror abuse of the mother of his child sent to prison

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT A man who held his wife prisoner in her own home for 36 hours, smashed her through a shower screen and shoved his fingers down her throat until she choked has been jailed for almost six years. Daryll Benjamin Cook won’t see the outside of a prison cell until at least November 2024 for the horrors he unleashed over a two-year period. The violence the 42-year-old inflicted in the couple’s High Wycombe home between 2014 and 2016 left the woman with permanent hearing loss in one ear, a broken arm, countless bruises and lasting psychological scars. In Perth’s District Court, Judge Nicholas Egan said Cook’s offending was made even worse by the fact it had sometimes occurred in front of their daughter. A jury found Cook guilty of three charges — two counts of deprivation of liberty and one of persistently engaging in family violence — after a trial in July. During his sentencing on Tuesday, the court was told that on one occasion, Cook and his partner were having an argument in the kitchen when he erupted in anger and began dragging her to the bathroom, wrenching her arm hard in the process. Judge Egan told Cook that while doing so, “you stuck your fingers down the throat of your victim, choking her”. He then threw the woman through the shower screen door, smashing it, before holding the bathroom door closed and sitting outside, refusing to let his wife leave. This ordeal lasted 12 hours and only came to an end when she managed to force her way out and run into the bedroom. But her freedom was short-lived, with Cook then locking her in that room. Over the next 24 hours, she tried desperately to flee, even attempting to break out through a window. She managed to escape once, before Cook dragged her back inside. The ordeal only came to an end when Cook succumbed to exhaustion and entered the room to fall asleep on the couple’s bed. This was just one of several terrifying ordeals to which his wife was subjected, which included being punched so hard she was left deaf in her left ear, having her head slammed into a wall and having her arm broken for turning down the volume on the TV. Judge Egan said the violence Cook unleashed on his now ex-wife was degrading and humiliating. He said a victim impact statement written by the woman detailed the emotional trauma she continues to suffer as a result of the abuse and fear she felt at his hands. “You have a criminal history, so you do not come to the court of prior good character,” he said, adding that this showed Cook’s ongoing disregard for the law. He sentenced Cook to five years and 10 months in prison, with parole eligibility after serving three years and 10 months. A lifetime violence restraining order was also put in place.