Wife-killer Christopher Cullen's violent past revealed

Long before he stabbed his estranged wife to death with fishing knives in Sydney, Christopher Cullen had form when it came to violence.

Victoria Comrie Cullen's battered body was found by a passer-by at a Taren Point fishing club, in the city's south, on January 22 last year.

Cullen, 51, who murdered Ms Comrie after deciding she was having an affair, is awaiting sentencing next month.

The jury,which found him guilty, rejected his claims that he was provoked and acted in excessive self-defence.

Its members knew nothing of Cullen's violent criminal past.

Court papers revealed on Thursday that in the 1980s and 1990s, while Cullen was still living in the UK, he was convicted of assaults, jumped up and down on a prison officer and spent time behind bars after he struck a victim in the face with a knuckle-duster.