Stabbing-trial summing up today

Press, 14 August 1980, Page 8

Stabbing-trial summing up today

A juiy in the. High Court will retire to give its verdict this morning on charges against a man who claims he was acting in selfdefence, and it was a “reflex action,” if he used his knife to stab a showman in the stomach at the Industries Fair last August. The accused, Allan Harwood, aged 24, faces a charge of assaulting Murray George Pickup, a showman, by punching him, and alternative charges of injuring James Matewaka Kahu Koti, a showman, with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm, or injuring Mr Koti with intent to injure him. He denied the charges and elected trial by jury. The trial, which is being heard before Mr Justice Somers and a jury, opened on Tuesday and Crown and defence evidence was completed yesterday. Crown and defence addresses were also completed and his Honour will sum up this morning before the jury retires. Mr G. K. Panckhurst

appears for the Crown. The defendant is represented by Mr D. C. Fitzgibbon and Mr E. Bedo.

Crown evidence on Tuesday had been that the accused and a companion, after calling at a caravan and drinking with showmen who were at the showgrounds for the Industries Fair, left the caravan soon after midnight, on August 20 last year. The accused had said he wanted a battery he had seen in the sideshow area, and had then punched Mr Pickup. Another showman ran back to the caravan for assistance and Mr Koti was then punched by the accused but chased after him and hit him. While lying on the accused and punching him, Mr Koti was stabbed in the stomach, and the accused’s companion stabbed Mr Koti twice in the back. The stomach wound, allegedly inflicted by the accused, penetrated the abdominal cavity and a short distance into the liver. The accused was not

found until December 26, some four months after the alleged offences. The Crown’s case was completed yesterday with evidence from Detective B. T. Bateman,' who said the accused said when interviewed on December 26 that he did not know where the other person was, and that he did not have to answer a question about the whereabouts of the knife. The accused said in evidence that-he and his companion were invited to the showgrounds by a showman, to look at the machinery and circus animals. They went to the caravan and were invited in. Mr Koti said something about not letting those animals in. The accused, said he was ‘just there for a quiet drink and not trouble, and to keep that sort of remark to himself.

After staying in the caravan for nearly two hours they left with Mr Pickup and Mr Stewart. In the sideshow area he and his companion were attacked from

behind. It was a free-for-all. He did not have any clear record of an assault on Mr Pick-up, and did not remember picking up a battery.’He was whacked on the side of the neck, and somebody landed on him when he fell back. He was winded and was being squashed, and did not know what happened then. “If I did pull a knife on a guv I was not really aware of'it. It must have been just reflexes or somethin;;,” he said.

• After leaving the area he went to look for his companion. He did not know what happened to his knife. The knife was used in whittling, which he had done since rehabilitation after losing an arm in a motor-cycle accident three years and a half ago. He did not carry the knife for self-defence. Cross-examined, the accused denied he had punched Mr Pickup in the chair-o-plane area. He said Koti came at him,

and there were others with him.

He said he might have stabbed Mr Koti, but he did not know he was doing it, and did not stab him intentionally. He said he must have drawn the knife as a reflex action. He was pretty worried about his safety at the time. He would have done anything to get out of it. In his final address to the jury Mr Panckhurst said the Crown contended the accused was the aggressor, and provoked Mr Koti into assaulting him. He said the use of the knife, which on the evidence must have been plunged to the hilt into Mr Koti, was “needless and unjustified.” Mr Fitzgibbon, in his final address, said the accused might have over-responded but the question was whether he intended to injure Mr Koti in the way he did. He suggested that it was “alLon” that night, with the showmen seeing the opportunity to attack “a couple of bikies.”