Fallen West Coast Eagles premiership player Daniel Kerr has narrowly avoided jail despite being convicted of domestic violence offences against his ex-partner over several years.
The ex-AFL player was handed a suspended jail term of four years and six months with strict conditions for the physical, verbal, coercive and financial abuse against a former partner between 2013 and 2019.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Former AFL star avoids jail time over family violence crimes.
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The Perth court heard on Friday that on one occasion, Kerr punched the woman while holding car keys and then licked the blood off them.
In other incidents during the relationship, which was “marred by drug and alcohol use”, he used a chainsaw to cut her bed in half and choked her while she was holding their five-month-old child.
The court heard the former premiership player was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2022 and psychological reports had identified Kerr as suffering from mental health issues years before committing the family violence crimes.
Kerr, the brother of injured Matildas captain Sam Kerr, has a history with the law.
In 2020, he was found passed out on Kalgoorlie Street in Perth and last year, he was sentenced to two years in prison after admitting to setting his parents’ Kardinya house on fire in February 2021.
The sentence was backdated, meaning he had already served the full term.
Kerr also admitted to setting the house on fire at a hearing at Perth Magistrates Court in September 2021, seven months after he denied the charge.
The 41-year-old has been told he will be sent straight to prison if he transgresses again in the next two years.
