"I'm gonna cave your f---ing head in", "I'm coming to get you," James Polkinghorne screamed over the phone to his estranged partner Jessica Silva.
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Polkinghorne, 28, later arrived out the front of Silva's Marrickville home where he proceeded to punch her in the face and rip her clothes during an ice fuelled rage.
He then got into a violent struggle with Silva's brother Miguel and father Avalino.
A hysterical Silva went into to her parent's Livingstone Road home and grabbed a large kitchen knife.
She came back out and found Polkinghorne on top of Miguel in the middle of the street and stabbed him five times on Mother's Day in 2012.
In 2014 a NSW Supreme Court jury found her not guilty of murder but guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Silva was later given a two-year suspended sentence.
But the 26-year-old wants to clear her name and has appealed her conviction in the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal.
In a hearing on Monday her barrister Greg Scragg SC argued that Silva acted in self defence when she killed Polkinghorne.
"It's our primary submission that the Crown had not established beyond reasonable doubt that the applicants's response was not a reasonable response in the circumstances as she perceived them to be," Mr Scragg said.
"The act was not unlawful because the appellant was acting in self defence," he said.
"It's my submission that she was entitled to defend herself and what she did was entirely reasonable."
But Crown prosecutor Neil Adams argued that Silva's response to the threat of Polkinghorne was not reasonable, noting the number of times she stabbed the deceased and the fact that she did not call the police.
"The opportunity to call the police in circumstances where she was significantly under threat was not taken. One would have expected her to make some other attempt to call the police," Mr Adams said.
Silva was supported in court by her family, including her mother and father.
The court was played an excerpt of Silva's electronically recorded police interview, taken just hours after the death of Polkinghorne.
Silva cradled her head in her hands and shook as she watched the interview.
The court also heard how Silva had suffered greatly during an abusive four-year relationship with Polkinghorne.
At the time of Silva's sentencing Justice Clifton Hoeben found she did not intend to kill Polkinghorne.
Justice Hoeben concluded Silva intended to cause Polkinghorne grievous bodily harm but acted partly in self-defence and partly to protect Miguel and Avalino.
"The death was committed under extreme circumstances in the agony of the moment," Justice Hoeben said.
Silva was charged with murder and spent 29 weeks behind bars on remand before she was granted bail, on which she remained throughout her trial in November 2014.
A decision on the appeal will be handed down at a later date.