A man has been slapped with a jail term for violently choking his female housemate after she failed to wash up her dirty dishes in a Brisbane share house.
Tensions between the two Wynnum residents boiled over in December 2014 when 61-year-old Ross Clarke became frustrated at his housemate's failure to do her dishes.
The Wynnum Magistrates Court heard he dumped the dirty items outside her room in frustration, sparking an altercation during which the woman's eye sockets filled with blood and she struggled to breathe.
Clarke's defence lawyer said while his client pleaded guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm, he didn't instigate the fight and was acting in self-defence.
But Magistrate Zac Sarra said the cause of the stoush was ridiculous and Clarke had used excessive force in response to a domestic matter.
"He almost choked a woman ... over washing up - how ridiculous is that?" he said.
"It's just bizarre behaviour."
Asked how he would have felt if the victim had died, Clarke replied: "I'd say I made a mistake".
Magistrate Sarra said Clarke had violated the sanctity of the home and the offence was an "insidious" one for having occurred in a private domain.
"It happened in the home where people should be feeling the safest," he said.
Clarke was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, suspended for a period of 18 months.
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