Woman acquitted of wounding

Press, 4 December 1985, Page 26

Woman acquitted of wounding

PA Auckland A woman accused of stabbing her de facto husband with a letter knife walked from the High Court after a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence for her trial to proceed. Carol Lee Blackburn, aged 22, a sickness beneficiary, was acquitted of wounding Kenneth Peter Mitchell with \ intent to cause grievous bodily harm. For the Crown, Mr David Jones told, the Court the police found Mr . Mitchell lying naked on a bed in his Ponsonby flat, covered only by a blood-soaked towel Blackburn claimed the couple were walking in a Cark when they were aticked by a Polynesian man and Mitchell was stabbed. Mr Mitchell told the police he was walking his dog in the park when two men “jumped him.” During a interview with the police, Blackburn admitted she had stabbed Mitchell with an ornamental knife. She said they had been fighting and he had

been hitting her. ."v > “I lived with - a.guy who hit me,” she said. “When Mitchell started hitting me*' I just could not handle it" It In evidence, Mr Mitchell' 1 said he fought with people' who would not leave his house. He was hit several times. When the people finally left he found Blackburn unconscious in an epileptic seizure in the bedroom. As» he helped her out of it and" held her tongue so that she* would not swallow it, he? noticed he was bleeding. ’ As Blackburn recovered, he lay on the bed. She rah to call an ambulance.

Mr Justice Henry dismissed the jury, saying that Blackburn was exonerated by Mr Mitchell’s evidence. — He said he also had re-’M servations about Blackburn’s “admission” to the ' police. She was before she was interviewed r i and was distressed. . 'V She denied the many times before conced-’" ing it at the end of an~ extensive interview. < .lj