Woman jailed for killing

A Broome woman in a four-year relationship marred by domestic violence fatally stabbed her partner after he threatened to leave her.

Erica Georgina Woodley, 22, was sentenced to four years in jail at the Supreme Court in Perth on June 3.

Woodley was made eligible for parole after serving two years by Justice Robert Mitchell.

She was originally charged with murder, but that was later downgraded to assault occasioning death. The court heard the couple argued at the Broome unit they shared at Kennedy Court in August 2013 after a drinking session.

Woodley wanted to go to bed and her partner wanted to go out and continue.

As a result, the man left the house and Woodley soon started drinking and smoking cannabis with a neighbour.

The shirtless and intoxicated man returned home early the next morning yelling and banging on locked doors at the property.

Woodley grabbed a knife from the kitchen and let him inside when he expressed a desire to leave and grabbed a plastic bag to pack his belongings.

In sentencing, Justice Mitchell said Woodley followed him to try to stop him from leaving and expressed her love for the man when he pushed her aside and she challenged him to do it again.

"Using a knife as a weapon to ward off the deceased in circumstances where the two of you were engaged in a physical altercation, you stabbed the deceased not foreseeing that death would ensue," he said.

The man was taken to Broome Hospital, where he died a short time later.

Justice Mitchell said the man had done nothing to warrant such a response, but there were mitigating factors in the case such as the "significant history of domestic violence which was a predominant feature of your relationship with the deceased".

"The assaults by the deceased included him punching you, hitting you with a stick and other objects, chasing you into barbed wire, and pulling your hair," he said.

"On one occasion he grabbed a black cord and threatened to hang you."