Man guilty of trying to injure with knife

Press, 17 July 1979, Page 6

Man guilty of trying to injure with knife

After deliberating more than five hours, a jury in the Supreme Court at Christchurch yesterday found Brent Kevin Rubbo. aged 32, unemployed, guilty on charges of assaulting William Richard Cole with intent to injure, and of assaulting Neil Maxwell Dorset. Both men are police constables.

Mr Justice Casey remanded Rubbo in custody to July 23 for sentence. The jury found Rubbo not guilty of attempting to murder Constable Cole. Mr S. G. Erber appeared for the Crown, and Mr M. J. Glue for Rubbo, who pleaded not guilty to all charges. Mr Erber said the charges arose from events on the night of December 22-23 at a house in Seaview Road next to the New Brighton police station, where Rubbo had lived in a de facto relationship with Marie Louise Palmer.

The couple had been drinking and there had been an argument. Mrs Palmer had run to the police station about. 2.20 a.m.

Constables Cole and Dorset i had gone to the house. Constable Cole had called out : that the police were there, and Rubbo had replied with ; obscene abuse and said that ■ if Constable Cole did not go away he would stab, murder, and stick him. Rubbo had come out with ! a knife, and had tried to stab

Constable Cole in the stomach. Because the constable had dodged it, the knife had missed his body by about three centimetres. Rubbo had jabbed the knife a second time at the constable, who had stepped back. Rubbo had said he would get his dog to attack the policemen. He had said he would get a gun and shoot them, and the armed offenders squad had been called out, Mr Erber said. Later, when the squad had entered the house, Rubbo had been asleep with the knife

under his pillow. No gun had been found in the house. Rubbo had appeared to be somewhat confused, and had.

asked Senior-Sergeant K. H Knox why he was in hand cuffs. He had been told i was because he had tried t< stab a policeman, and Rubb* had replied that that wa right. In a written statemen Rubbo had said that thi police had said something u him. but he had not beet able to remember what “Then I went off my nut. i

do not know what made ml go off my nut but it musi have been something thej said. I got wild, shot outsidi with the knife and was wav ing it around . . .’’ Mr Glue said Rubbo hai already pleaded guilty tc charges of assaulting Mr! Palmer and threatening tt kill Constable Cole, and thai was as far as the mattei should go. It had not been proved tha! Rubbo intended to murder et injure Constable Cole. In hi! statement made soon aftei the events he said that h< had taken the knife to scaw the police away, and if thal had been his intention, then he was entitled to be acquitted.