Girl on wounding charge contends self-defence

Press, 1 June 1984, Page 12

Girl on wounding charge contends self-defence

A girl, aged 17, who was alleged by the police to have stabbed a young woman several times in the back after an argument, had acted in self-defence, said her counsel, Mr A. N. D. Garrett, in the District Court yesterday. Waiana Suzanne Kotara, unemployed, elected trial by jury on a charge of wounding Suzanne Margaret Berry, aged 23, with intent to injury her, after midnight on April 20. After hearing depositions of evidence of prosecution witnesses, Messrs R. M. Naymsith and L. Hudson, Justices of the Peace, held that there was sufficient evidence to commit Kotara for trial. They remanded her on bail to July 9, pending a date for trial in the High Court. Sergeant G. G. Cleland prosecuted.

The charge related to a stabbing incident in a house in Achilles Street occupied by the defendant’s mother, Raewyn Kotara, and in which Waiana Kotara and Miss Berry lived. Medical evidence was given that Miss Berry was admitted to hospital at 2.45 a.m. on April 20 with five wounds in the back. These required stitches, but there were no internal injuries. Mrs Berry gave evidence of going to the Tavern Rachel at 8 p.m. on April 19, with a group which included the defendant. She drank beer and spirits all evening and was quite drunk by the time she got home. At their home in Achilles Street, about midnight, she vaguely remembered having an argument with the defendant about people being in the house. The witness was drinking straight bourbon at the time. She could not think properly. She said she picked up an axe handle from the floor of Raewyn Kotara’s bedroom, and went to strike the defendant across the head with it.

The defendant grabbed the handle and they then

fought and rolled round on the floor. While on the floor she did not notice any pain in her back. “I just felt her hitting me and me hitting her.” After she got up she had another drink, Miss Berry said. She felt al] right. Miss Berry said she was taken to hospital. She received stitches in her back and under her arm for “cuts.” She said she did not know the cause of the cuts, and did not know they had been inflicted. Miss Berry said she was the only person to have something in her hands during the fight. She received four injuries to her back, but did not know how they happened. Cross-examined, Miss Berry said she could not think properly about her argument with the defendant, because of the alcohol she had consumed. She agreed that she was in a bad mood that night, and argumentative. She could remember hitting the defendant a few times with the axe handle, on the head and thigh. Miss Berry said she had lost her temper that night. She said she most probably would have continued hitting the defendant, if Kotara had not reacted as she did.

Detective K. A. Dooley said the defendant, when interviewed about the matter at 4 a.m. admitted having stabbed Miss Berry after Miss Berry and the witness’s mother, Raewyn Kotara, had argued. Her mother left the house to go to a telephone and Miss Berry began picking on the witness and yelling at her. Miss Berry began hitting her with an stick in Mrs Kotara’s bedroom. The defendant said she saw a knife on the window sill, and grabbed it and pulled Miss Berry towards her and stabbed her in the back. The defendant said she was very sorry about stabbing Suzie as she was normally a good friend of hers. “I stabbed her because she was attacking me,” her statement concluded. Mr Garrett submitted that the police had not shown sufficient evidence of an intention by the defendant to wound Miss Berry. The defendant had suffered some degree of harm, and had acted in self-defence against Miss Berry’s attack, he submitted. Sergeant Cleland submitted that intent could be inferred by the defendant’s taking up a knife and stabbing Mis Berry in the back more than once. This went far beyond self-defence, he said.