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Ex-Girlfriend Of Former AFL Player Speaks Out After He Is Jailed For Her Bashing

Richelle Kadadi said Albert Proud hasn't broken her spirit.
Former Brisbane Lions player Albert Proud and Richelle Kadadi.
Fairfax: Nine Network
Former Brisbane Lions player Albert Proud and Richelle Kadadi.

Richelle Kadadi said her spirit isn't broken as she speaks out for the first time after her ex-boyfriend and former AFL player Albert Proud was jailed for her bashing on Monday.

The former Brisbane Lions player had a history of violence against women and was on parole in November when he bashed Kadadi so badly she was left in a coma with horrific brain injuries.

On Monday afternoon, Proud was sentenced to five and a half years in jail for grievous bodily harm but could be released on parole in October 2017.

Speaking on The Project on Monday night, Kadadi said she is still haunted by how close her five-year-old son came to losing her, but her spirit isn't broken as she recovers from the trauma.

"I felt like I was physically hurt in the [worst] possible way but I do not feel that my spirit was broken," Kadadi told the program.

"If you don't have that spirit, then you may as well have died. So I just need to get on with my life, keep on living it, being the best mum I can and just try and enjoy every second."

Admitting it was hard to see Proud sentenced at Brisbane District Court on Monday, the 33-year-old recalled the moment he turned violent on November 8, 2015 when Kadadi drove the couple home from a friend's wedding.

"He started smashing his phone into my windscreen and then threw his phone out the window. "

"Without saying a word, he started punching me in the chest. I was petrified," the single mother told the program.

"I remember thinking 'he's going to kill me' and I remember begging him, thinking 'act weak', begging him, please, please, 'my son, my son', trying to get some rationality into his brain. I'm someone that he loved... Somehow I ran out of that house."

Kadadi lost more than a litre of blood and was hospitalised for more than a month with a brain haemorrhage.

"They have different levels of brain injury and the highest is horrific, and mine was horrific brain injury," Kadadi said on Monday night.

"There were people in there that had had brain injuries by getting hit from cars, and I had been put in the same place by a man's bare fist."

On Monday, Judge Tony Moynihan said the ordeal had a "profound effect" on Kadadi's life. Proud pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm and wilful damage.

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