Perth man found guilty of attempted murder of ex-girlfriend

A Perth man who stalked and harassed an ex-girlfriend for months before trying to kill her has been found guilty of attempted murder by a Supreme Court of WA jury.

The group took less than a day to convict Mihael Vrhovsek, 29, after hearing weeks of evidence and witness testimony at trial that showed a pattern of obsessive and abusive behaviour from him towards a woman he had been previously dating.

Prosecutors told the court Vrhovsek mounted a campaign of abuse at the woman for five months following their separation that included changing his number 18 times after she blocked each one so he could repeatedly call and abuse her.

They also said Vrhovsek tried to make contact with the woman 234 times via text messages and phone calls over a three-day period in the lead up to the attempted murder that culminated with him “lying in wait” in his car outside her apartment block for eight hours.

“Kill yourself already?“, “This is your last warning”, “You’re a spectacular piece of s—“, ”Go f— yourself, politely”, and “I would have killed myself already but the hatred towards you is keeping me alive” were just some of the text messages the victim received.

The woman told the court the couple had been in an on-again, off-again “volatile” relationship since 2019.

After the relationship ended in September 2023, the woman said she left Vrhovsek’s apartment and took her things to look for a place of her own.

She said she tried to avoid any interactions with Vrhovsek after she moved out, but said he would relentlessly call, text and email her despite the fact she never responded.

By January 2024 she said the communication “got darker” with one email reading, “Thanks for another sleepless night, I much prefer pretending you are dead in that apartment”. He also allegedly texted her “Good night attention seeking s—” and later “You’re dead to me”.

After spending one weekend away from her apartment because she was scared he would find her, the woman then told the court she went back briefly to grab a change of clothing with a friend, but when she ran into Vrhovsek she immediately called triple-zero.

“I saw him walk out of the doors at me – he was looking down, targeted, coming at me,” she told the jury.

That call was played to the jury during the trial where she could be heard yelling “get the f— away from me, get the f— away from me” before the call goes quiet.

It’s in those moments that she said Vrhovsek put his hands around her throat and lifted her off the ground while her friend and a bystander pulled him off twice. The victim said he then ran and lunged at her again, choking her into unconsciousness.

The incident was all caught on CCTV cameras and played to the jury, but Vrhovsek denied he was trying to kill her and gave evidence that he did not remember the alleged assault.

He will be sentenced on July 23.