A jet-setting Australian real estate executive who repeatedly bashed his wife during drunken arguments in their French home has been jailed for a year.

Damien Carew, 44, twice strangled his wife Anna Polianskaya, also translated as Ana Polianski, and slammed her head into the side of a bathtub putting her in hospital, a court in Nice, France heard this week. 

The arguments between Carew, a graduate of Melbourne‘s prestigious St Kevin’s College, and his Russian wife occurred at the end of 2022 when he returned home after a year in detention over a money-laundering investigation. 

‘We would be drinking all day and sometimes we would start an argument and there would be violence from me,’ Carew told the court through an interpreter, the Herald Sun reported. 

He said the couple would argue about whose fault it was that they had lost custody of their two children, who were put into the care of Ms Polianskaya’s mother after school teachers raised concerns about the couple’s heavy drinking in early 2023. 

Following a fight in April 2023 at their home in the picturesque village of La Turbie near Monaco, Ms Polianskaya was rushed to hospital and placed in an induced coma, which led police to arrest Carew and charge him with attempted murder. 

That charge was later downgraded to repeated domestic violence towards a spouse.

He was sentence to 12 months imprisonment, however that can be served in home detention, taking into account the 16 months Carew spent in a cell awaiting trial. 

Until his life began to unravel in late 2021, Carew had been a successful real estate entrepreneur and the couple had lived a life of luxury in Dubai and France after meeting on a beach in Monaco in 2011. 

The court heard Carew’s real estate business was heavily impacted by the Covid pandemic. 

Before that, they were living the high-life in Dubai and then moved to the tax haven of Monaco in late 2014 to settle down.

‘They were living in a humungous villa on Palm Islands,’ a friend previously told Daily Mail Australia.

‘They were a very good looking couple, as you can tell. They obviously had a very ostentatious life. They live in Monaco, they’ve been in Dubai.’

While in the UAE, Ms Polianskaya-Carew worked for the American commercial real estate services company Jones Lang LaSalle and her husband was involved in property as well as dealing in diamonds.

‘They’re the most generous people, quite quirky, but really down to earth. They’re just so nice. It’s just so sad. My heart breaks for the children,’ the friend said.

In October 2021 Carew was allegedly found by firefighters intoxicated on a Paris street with almost €200,000 cash ($A335,000) inside an ordinary-looking bag. 

Police were called, who then allegedly found a further €160,000 ($A268,000) in cash after searching an apartment in the north of Paris where he was staying. He allegedly handled about €4m ($A6.7million) through his accounts or in cash.

Carew was charged with aggravated money laundering and conspiracy to commit an offence punishable by 10 years imprisonment. 

His defence lawyer claims he was a low-level bagman in an international network and was merely required to deliver cash to people in Paris hotels.

Carew spent a year in detention before he was released on bail and returned to his home in La Turbie to live with Ms Polianskaya and their two children, a girl born in 2017 and a boy born in 2019.

‘I understand that having three dogs and two kids is a lot to take after being in prison but it is no excuse [for violence],’ Ms Polianskaya told the court through an interpreter.

A medical examination when Ms Polianskaya was admitted to hospital in April 2023 found multiple bruises on her eye sockets, chin, abdomen, arms, legs and back.

She also had damage to her shoulder blade and pelvis along with a brain injury from her head hitting the bathtub.

Carew admitted to hitting her on multiple occasions but claimed she bruised easily because she was anaemic and that she often fell over when drinking, which Ms Polianskaya denied. 

In the half-day trial, Carew was also ordered to pay Ms Polianskaya €30,000 ($48,698AUD) in damages, subject to review at a later date, and must not contact her for three years.

The money laundering investigation is continuing and Carew cannot leave the country until it is completed.