Tiffany died from 42 head injuries in what a judge labelled ‘an extreme form of domestic violence’

Warning: This story contains graphic content. Indigenous readers are advised this story contains the name and images of a deceased person.

A man who inflicted a sustained and brutal assault upon his partner, leaving her with 42 head and neck injuries, will spend at least the next 21 years behind bars after he was sentenced for her murder on Thursday.

Peter Damjanovic, 39, pleaded guilty to murdering 35-year-old Tiffany Woodley at her Bedford home in 2023, with the court hearing how he had been drinking before an argument broke out between the pair that led to Damjanovic assaulting her first with his fists, then a shower head, and ultimately with a towel rail, killing her.

The details of her injuries were so extreme that before his plea of guilty it was decided that his hearing would not be heard before a jury to spare them the trauma of hearing about how Woodley died.

State prosecutors said Damjanovic and Woodley, who had been struggling with mental health issues, were in an on-again, off-again relationship when the pair travelled into Perth together on August 7, 2023.

They both had separate appointments, him in Fremantle and she at Royal Perth Hospital. After he was finished, he began consuming a bottle of port and, by the time he got home, he had drunk half.

Around 4pm, the couple started arguing and then he “became angry and started to hit her”, the court was told.

He told her to go to the bathroom and get cleaned up because she was bleeding.

Then he continued to beat her with a shower head and a towel rail. He took her mobile phone from her, pushed her into the shower and continued to beat her.

After she stopped breathing, Damjanovic called triple zero and told the operator he had killed her.

“Help me, help me,” he told police who arrived at the house shortly after.

“She needs help, please help her.”

Tiffany was lying in a pool of blood.

“Her injuries can only be described as horrific,” Supreme Court Justice Natalie Whitby said on Thursday.

“You continued to attack her until she stopped breathing. Your attack on Ms Woodley was an extreme form of domestic violence.

“You attacked her in her home. She trusted you. She allowed you into her home and into her life.

“She was entitled to feel safe with you. She was anything but.”

Ahead of his sentencing, Damjanovic’s legal team attempted to delay the hearing by suggesting that Whitby, the wife of WA Police Minister Reece Whitby, may be biased because the minister had taken part in a domestic violence rally that Woodley’s family and friends also attended.

Damjanovic’s lawyer, Simon Freitag SC, told the court ahead of the hearing that he wanted to raise an issue that began with a proposed victim impact statement from a woman who called herself Woodley’s aunt, but who wasn’t biologically related.

“She is an advocate of domestic violence,” he said.

“And was part of a public campaign in 2025 that we say leads to an apprehension of bias issue [because] the police minister attended a number of those rallies and through his own social media has promoted those rallies and the scourge of domestic violence.

“We don’t take any issues with that, the difficulty is that Mr Damjanovic comes to be sentenced for domestic violence, but Your Honour is a private citizen as well, and you are married to the police minister.”

Freitag said that while the police minister’s involvement was part of “an entirely worthy cause and a worthy campaign”, it had left Damjanovic feeling that “he wouldn’t be getting a fair approach from the court in that situation”.

Freitag continued that while he accepted there was no “active bias” against his client, it was “a matter of perception” of Her Honour’s involvement that he felt should lead to her recusing herself from the hearing.

State prosecutors indicated they would oppose the application before an adjournment of the sentencing while the request was considered.

Follow the break, Whitby dismissed the application, saying her husband was one of many who attended the 16 Days in WA rally, and there was no suggestion he had had any involvement in the case, nor with the domestic violence advocate mentioned.

“My husband’s participation in a large public march is not a basis that gives rise to any apprehended bias,” she said.

She went on to sentence Damjanovic to life in prison for Woodley’s murder with a minimum non-parole period of 21 years.

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