Johannesburg - A grandmother who stabbed and beat her husband to death with a knobkerrie is fighting her deportation to South Africa.
Eileen Creamer was jailed for 11 years after she killed David in the Australian town of Moe in 2008.
Now, as she nears her parole date release, the 60-year-old is appealing her deportation in the Federal Court after Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton cancelled her visa in April. This order would mean that Creamer, on her release, would be deported to the country of her birth.
But Creamer argued in court that Dutton did not take into account her contributions to society while serving her time in jail. These included washing the dirty laundry of the Defence Force.
In February 2008, David was found dead in a blood splattered room after she had hit him over the head with a knobkierre and then stabbed him the stomach.
During the Supreme Court trial, Creamer had argued that she was the victim, and had endured an abusive 11-year open marriage. She said she eventually killed him in self-defence after he taunted her after sleeping with another woman. He then demanded group sex.
She further claimed that after she attacked him with the knobkerrie, he threatened to urinate on her. She then stabbed him with a kitchen knife.
In court, Creamer said her husband constantly harassed her to have sex with other men and had posted elicit photos of her online to attract partners.
Prosecutors, however, argued that she had killed David after learning that he was going back to his first wife.
David’s family refused to comment on Creamer’s possible deportation.
Creamer was found guilty of a newly introduced charge of defensive homicide.
The charge had only been introduced in the state of Victoria in 2005 to provide an alternative charge for victims of domestic violence who killed their partners.
The minister said his decision to revoke her visa was because she had contributed little to her community in the nine months after she arrived in Australia. She had immigrated first to New Zealand from South Africa before moving to Australia in 2006.
He also took into account the cost of keeping her in jail.
However, Creamer countered that he did not take into account her contribution to society while in prison.
This included washing laundry for the Defence Force, which the minister’s lawyer said could not be counted as contributing to society.
In 2015, Creamer was ordered to pay her husband’s first wife and two sons A$75000 in compensation for pain and suffering.
Lawyers for the family told the Victorian Supreme Court at the time that they had suffered a double loss as they had just reunited with him, months before his death.
He had travelled to South Africa to visit them in 2007.
A federal judge is yet to decide if Creamer’s deportation ruling is to be reversed.