A HUSBAND who demanded sex with his wife at least three times a day after he began taking the drug Viagra has been ordered to pay his wife $232,000 in compensation.

In a landmark court ruling, Svetozar Varmedja, 80, was found to have subjected his 53-year-old wife to more than 18 months of physical and sexual abuse.

It included 60 threats to kill her if she did not meet his sexual needs.

"Those tablets changed him and he started to treat me like a slave," his terrified wife said from her Sydney home.

The Serbian-born woman said the horrific mental and sexual abuse began in 2001 after her husband began taking the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra.

"He was a gentleman and a good man, but then he started taking the tablets," she told The Sunday Telegraph last week.

She said he was taking up to three Viagras a day.

His sex drive increased dramatically and she was forced into hundreds of sex acts.

"After taking those tablets, he told me it was very important for him to have sex three or four times a day," she said.

Mrs Varmedja's seven-year battle for justice ended last week when the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by her husband that the pay-out was "excessive".

The court said the case was "unusual" because an ex-spouse does not usually sue for assault.

Nonetheless, it demonstrated that he should be ordered to pay her damages for his deliberate, intentional and reckless disregard for her.

Mrs Varmedja met her Australian husband in Serbia in 1995 and the couple married in 2000.

She moved to Australia to live with him at his property near Orange, in the state's central west.

Despite the age difference, Mrs Varmedja said her husband was a good man who treated her well, until April 2001, when he started taking Viagra.

"Until April, he was very correct to me ... there was no violence, there was no pressure of any kind to do anything," she told the court.

In his judgement, Judge Stephen Walmsley detailed the litany of abuse, which included more than 200 sexual assaults, some of which would last for 40 minutes.

He found there were three acts of sexual assault a week, as well as other sex acts.

He beat her with a curtain rod, a stick and his shotgun.

"He put his gun in my mouth and said: 'One day, I will kill you'," Mrs Varmedja alleged.

She claimed he also lit matches and threw them at her body. The court heard that, when Mrs Varmedja told him on September 21, 2002, she was leaving, he tried to strangle her.

He also cut off her hair, stating: "This is your punishment for not completely satisfying me and this is what I will always do."

Mr Varmedja denied his former wife's allegations. But the court found Mrs Varmedja was assaulted and had suffered a significant and chronic post-traumatic shock disorder, as well as depression.

Mrs Varmedja's solicitor, Steven Stojanovic, of Stojanovic Solicitors, said the case was "unique".

"It confirms that the law is there to help victims of this type of treatment," Mr Stojanovic said.

Mrs Varmedja launched the civil claim, arguing that it was an intentional assault.

She told The Sunday Telegraph she continues to live in hiding, fearful for her safety.

Mr Varmedja was ordered to pay Mrs Varmedja $232,791 for the pain and suffering he had inflicted on her, her medical costs, and to punish him for his wrongdoing.

"She was forced to undergo and undertake humiliating sexual acts without her consent and in circumstances where she was threatened with dire consequences if she did not succumb to his demands," the NSW Court of Appeal stated.

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