A Victorian man who could not be identified has been sentenced to life after a brutal murder of his wife, involving gouging out her right eye and flushing it down the toilet in front of his children.

A sympathiser of the Islamic State, the Melbourne-based man was ordered a life sentence in prison following the murder of his wife back in 2016 in front of his three children aged 2, 4, and 6.

The Supreme Court, who described the act as “grotesque”, heard how the man gouged her right eye out of her eye socket and sliced two fingers off of her left hand before repeatedly slashing at her body with a knife.

At the time of the murder, their three young children had been forced to watch as their mother’s eye was cut out and flushed down the toilet as she was still alive.

Later on, they were forced to accompany their father as he drove to find a place to dispose the body. The man then drove the kids to a bakery to purchase bread using her debit card.

The body was found later in a bush near a home in Broadmeadows. She had been heavily wrapped in plastic and insulating tape, and her face and body (including her genitals) had sustained injuries. The cause of her death was ruled to be blood loss. The damages to her corpse had been so extreme that the police officers on the scene could not determine her gender at first.

Judge Lasry, during his sentence of the accused, expressed sorrow at the fact that the children who observed the murder take place were sure to be traumatised.

Lasry described the attack as “vicious”, and stated that what the man did was “disgusting” and the culmination of years of domestic violence.

The couple had met back in 2008 and married only two weeks after meeting on the account that the marriage had been arranged. They quickly conceived and birthed three children.

Police reports on the home stated that the residence was in a total state of neglect, with extremely dirty mattresses and very little in the way of furniture.

The court heard that the man’s sympathies with the Islamic State formed a basis of violence by which the couple’s relationship was governed. The police reported blood stains dried on the walls of the home.

The man had expressed desire to join the fight in Syria with the terrorist group against his wife’s wishes. This was believed by police to be the main factor driving the man to commit the crime.