An explosive phone call secretly recorded by the fiancée of a multimillionaire restaurateur’s son reveals how he beat her so hard she has a permanently damaged eye.
Daniel Drakopoulos, 29, called Monique Clark after he broke into her home and threw her against a wall.
Daniel, the son of Sydney’s ‘King of the Waterfront’ restaurateur Bill Drakopoulos, choked Ms Clark until she couldn’t breathe, kicked her, and headbutted her left eye so hard her sight remains damaged.
The transcript of the harrowing call exclusively obtained by Daily Mail Australia also shows the depth of Ms Clark’s emotional trauma following the assault.
Transcripts of two versions of the phone call were tendered as exhibits at the Downing Centre Local Court.
The call revealed Drakopoulos’ greatest fear of going to prison for the attack which began in Ms Clark’s home in Paddington, in Sydney’s East, and continued on nearby Oxford Street.
‘That is my worst nightmare going to prison,’ Drakopoulos whined in the call before asking her, ‘so do you want me to go to jail? Do you think it’s fair for me to go to jail?’
According to the tendered transcript of the call, Ms Clark replied: ‘I want whatever’s fair. I want justice.’
Restaurant empire king’s son Daniel Drakopoulos (above)
Daniel Drakopoulos (left) with his father, Bill, and his younger brother Perry all work in the family’s restaurant empire
Stephen Russell (centre, pictured with his client Daniel Drakopoulos, left, and father Bill Drakopoulos, right) is one of two barristers representing the 29-year-old
She also admitted she had been so ‘broken’ and fearful since the brutal attack that she considered taking her own life.
Drakopoulos was charged over the savage assault in February last year at Manly police station, just a short drive from one of his father’s famed restaurants, Ormeggio on The Spit.
The former private schoolboy is, like his three siblings, employed in the family’s multi-million dollar restaurant business. He turned up at court last week with his entire family including father, Bill.
The phone call, which the tendered transcripts reveal as basically a full recorded confession made by Drakopoulos, was not played in open court and the offender’s lawyers said ‘there was an admissibility issue because of potential illegalities’ in Ms Clark’s recording.
While it can be an offence to record a phone call without a person’s permission, under the Listening Devices Act if a person has a reasonable apprehension they are going to be subject to an offence they may record it for their own protection.
The tendered transcripts were the full 19 minute call made by Drakopoulos on April 13, and an eight minute ‘snippet’ which contained the most agonising details of the assault.
Before the attack, Ms Clark had been dating Drakopoulos for two-and-a-half years and in the call, which occurred eight weeks after the assault, she alluded to problems in the relationship before the assault took place.
She described the attack as ‘the last straw when you beat me up (after) everything you’ve … put me through.
Monique Clark told her fiance Daniel Drakopooulos in a phone call that he had completely ‘broken’ her and that she would never be the same physically or emotionally after his beating
Daniel Drakopoulos’ entire family, including mother Kathleen (left) and brother Perry (right) turned up in support for his hearing at the Downing Centre which will conclude with a sentencing on June 19
Daniel Drakopoulos (left) with his family
‘You hit me. .. you choked me. You f***en threw me. You kicked me. You headbutted me. You broke into my home.
‘You choked me so hard with your hands you left fingerprints and marks on my neck. I couldn’t breathe.
‘You’ve permanently damaged my left eye. I spent last night in hospital. I spent Monday in hospital because I couldn’t see because you headbutted it so hard.
‘You f***ed me up.’
Ms Clark admitted in the call that she had since lost a fifth of her body weight.
‘I’m tiny,’ she said at one point in the call, ‘you could have killed me. You f***ed me up. And after everything you put me through you did that.
‘I’m scared. Every morning I feel pain when I wake up. Physical pain, emotional pain.
‘Do I destroy myself? Do I take my own life to put myself out of this misery? What the fuck did I do to deserve any of those things.’
The family’s swank eateries include Aqua (above) on Sydney Harbour, Manta at Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf – a favourite of celebrities including Elton John and Jon Bon Jovi, and Sails at Lavender Bay
Daniel’s fiancée said each time she went home (above) and saw the hole in the wall left by the attack she was triggered again and emotionally traumatised
While admitting what he did to her during the 19 minute call, Drakopoulos seemed most animated when responding to her repeated warnings that could go to prison.
She is also recorded telling him to leave her alone: ‘I told you not to contact me. You still contact me? You turn up to the house. You call me. You email me. You contact my family?’
In the exchange, Drakopoulos conceded that since the assault he had bombarded Ms Clark with phone calls and ‘10,000 texts every day’, but it was because he wanted to know how she was doing.
He also appeared to consider that even after beating her up, their relationship might still have a chance: ‘I just wanna hear your voice. And I don’t care if you tell me “Daniel I have moved on”. If that’s what it is.’
Ms Clark described how she was triggered by seeing the hole in the wall at her home where Drakopoulos threw either her, or her phone, and at the spot on Oxford Street where he viciously headbutted her eye.
‘You could go to jail,’ she told him in the call. ‘
‘Do you know what a section 37 is? That’s for strangulation.
‘The minimum for strangulation is five years in prison. So you understand that?
‘And when you plead not guilty and there’s evidence, that angers the court even more. Because you’re wasting their time by lying. Do you understand that?’
Daniel Drakopoulos (right) and his brother and father traditionally pose in their swimming shorts every Christmas
A prison sentence may now be a remote possibility for Drakopoulos, who turned up at court for what was meant to be a lengthy hearing with two of Sydney’s most prominent lawyers, Philip Strickland SC and Stephen Russell.
It appears he, or his parents, have spent an eye-watering amount on top shelf legal advice to keep their son from going to jail.
Drakopoulos initially pleaded not guilty to five charges until prosecutors withdrew four counts in court on May 15, including the choking charge and one serious assault charge.
But Drakopoulos then pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and malicious damage.
He will be sentenced on June 19.
