Man charged with stabbing former girlfriend

Press, 13 October 1982, Page 4

Man charged with stabbing former girlfriend

A man alleged to have stabbed his former girlfriend with a pocket-knife she had given him told the High Court yesterday that he had drunk seven or eight bottles of beer in the course of the day of the incident. Kevin Raymond Ambler, aged 27, unemployed, faces charges of wounding his former girlfriend with intent to injure her and wounding her with reckless disregard for her safety. He faces two identical charges in relation to a male complainant.

Both the woman complainant and the man had their names suppressed. Ambler has pleaded not guilty and the case is being tried by a jury of six men and six women before Mr Justice Roper. It is expected to end this morning. Ambler is represented by Mr D. C. Fitzgibbon. The jury was.told by Mr G. K. Panckhurst, for the Crown, that the woman complainant had been Ambler’s girlfriend but she had broken off the relationship because of his drinking. He had found it difficult to accept the break.

On June 17. the woman, the male complainant, and two friends went to the Gladstone Hotel, where Ambler was drinking in a different bar.

They exchanged a few words. The woman complainant told Ambler she did not wish to speak to him.

When the woman and her three companions returned to her car after closing time they were again approached by Ambler. The woman complainant agreed to talk to him while her companions

waited a short distance away. The conversation became heated, with Ambler accusing the woman of going out with other men. Ambler then struck the woman in the stomach with a knife he had had in his pocket. The injury turned out not to be serious, said Mr Panckhurst. After the blow was struck, the male complainant intervened, hitting Ambler a glancing blow with a whisky bottle. A struggle ensued and the male complainant suffered a chest wound requiring six stitches, an injury to his back requiring 17 stitches, and a potentially serious injury to his left eyelid that required specialist treatment in hospital. After the scuffle the four found that the woman complainant’s car had had its rear tyre slit. Ambler’s former girlfriend, a 22-year-old student, was at first reluctant to give evidence. She gave her name and age, but when asked if she knew the accused she said: “I'm sorry, your Honour, I don’t want to say anything else. I’m too scared. I have a letter I would like you to read.’’

After reading the letter. Mr Justice Roper suppressed the woman’s name, saying, “Beyond that I cannot go.”

Later when asked to tell of the alleged stabbing the woman said: “I don’t want to," and began to weep. His Honour said: "It’s not as upsetting as all that. I think the sooner you co-operate the sooner you will be out of that witness box."

The woman said in evidence that at one stage during their discussion in the carpark. Ambler had held her by the hair. Then she got hit in the stomach. “It didn't hurt or anything so I never thought it was anything much."

She found later that she was bleeding and was taken to hospital where five stitches were put in the injury to her stomach. To Mr Fitzgibbon, the woman agreed that she had told Ambler -she had an association with a motorcycle gang and that she had a gun, both of which she said in order to scare him.

The male complainant told the Court that before the incident he had been a friend of Ambler.

The witness said that when he saw Ambler in the car park he did not look himself, he looked grey and drawn.

The blow Ambler aimed at the woman complainant was “a little wee jab.”

When he saw the blow he ran at Ambler with the whisky bottle in his hand. He hit him a glancing blow, dropping the bottle, and they fell to the ground fighting. He felt a pain in his left eye and bled heavily from the wound. He ran to the hotel lavatory to wash away the blood. He subsequently spent five days in hospital and had eye surgery. He also found that he had other wounds in the shoulder and chest which required stitching. Ambler said in evidence that ■ he had been drinking most of the day of the alleged assault. He said that after seeing his former girlfriend and failing to talk to

her he left the hotel and walked away, intending to go home. However, he decided he would try again to talk to her and went back to where her car was parked near the hotel. There he encountered his former girlfriend and her companions and she agreed to talk. As their conversation became heated, the male complainant and the other woman in the group moved closer, to his side and behind him. His former girlfriend spoke of having a gun and getting somebody to hurt him if he touched her again. Ambler said that he “flew off the handle a little bit" and punched his former girlfriend in the chest. The next thing he knew he saw the male complainant running at him with a bottle in his upraised hand to hit him.

He whipped his pocketknife out and flicked it open and then was hit by the bottle. The blow stunned him and left a lump on his head that was still there. Ambler said that he and the male complainant grappled together on the ground. “I can’t deny stabbing him. I was just trying to get him off me.’"

After the fight, he had walked into town, and taken a taxi home.

He did not know until next day that, his former girlfriend had been stabbed. The only time she could possibly have got stabbed was when he turned to confront the male complainant with the knife in his hand.

The knife had been given to him by his former girlfriend last Christmas. He did not know where it was now.