Accused weeps as he recalls stabbing

Press, 11 June 1987, Page 7

Accused weeps as he recalls stabbing

A man charged with murder wept in the High Court yesterday as he recalled stabbing the lover of his former de facto wife.

Donald Thomas McGillivray, aged 26, a solo father, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Sheldon William Thom, aged 27, on December 20, 1986.

The case is before Justice Tipping and a High Court juiy. McGillivray yesterday continued giving evidence in his own defence, led by his counsel, Mr P. H. B. Hall.

He said he went to the home of Miss Jane Tweedie in Dunaman Street, Avonside, to see if he could have his daughter, Roseland, for the day.

He also intended to ask Miss Tweedie about her relationship with Mr Thom. He said Miss Tweedie agreed to take Roseland to his place in her car because he was riding a bicycle. When he asked about Mr Thom, Miss Tweedie told him that he was not at the house. • "I wanted to believe her, I didn't want to believe she was lying to me.

“But I couldn’t be sure of what she was saying. I didn’t know whether to believe her or not,” he said.

He left to return home, but decided on his way to see for himself if Mr Thom was in Miss Tweedie’s house. He entered the school grounds which backed on to the and climbed the fence.

McGillivray said he noticed the car was not in the driveway, indicating Miss Tweedie had already left to take Roseland to his house.

.He knocked on : the front door, which was wide open, and went .inside.

He knocked off the main bedroom door and pushed it open when he heard no response. Mr Thom was lying on the bed. He did not think Mr Thom was wearing anything. “It was Jane’s bed, our family bed. Roseland was born in that bed.

“Seeing Sheldon there was a real shock to me. I felt he shouldn’t be there. I felt I wanted to go and confront Jane. She should not have lied to me.”

He stepped back into the hallway and wanted to sit down and cry. McGillivray said he went into the kitchen, he wanted to smash something and while at the back door, he noticed a kitchen knife on the fridge. “My hand was right beside it I don’t remember picking it up.”

He said his next memory was of the knife going into Mr Thom.

McGillivray then began to weep and Mr Hail

asked for an adjournment The accused later said that Mr Thom lifted his

head, opened his eyes, and grabbed his hand when he had stabbed him.

“I wanted to help him but I couldn’t. He had a hold of the knife and wouldn’t let me help.” McGillivray said he then ran to a near-by dairy to get help. The house did not’ have a telephone. Earlier, McGillivray had said he had always hoped for a reconciliation with Miss Tweedie. He thought they were working toward it, but he did not push the issue.

The weekend before he had seen Mr Thom at Miss Tweedie’s place when he had picked up his son, Paul.

On the evening of December 19, he wanted to know if Mr Thom had been staying at the house. He wanted to talk-to Miss Tweedie, but did not want to go to the house and find Mr Thom was there. He went instead to the school grounds behind the house, climbed a tree, and looked into the property. He said he saw Mr Thom is a chair with Miss Tweedie at his feet. A neighbour was also there. The neighbour and Mr Thom were laughing, but Miss Tweedie seemed quiet. McGillivray said he felt silly and returned home. When cross-examined by Mr D. J.. L. Saunders, McGillivray said he had always thought there was a good chance of reconciliation, in spite of Mr Thoms’s presence. A psychiatrist and the medical superintendent of Sunnyside Hospital, Dr Leslie Ding, said Mr McGillivray’s personality had two aspects which cbuld be considered pathological.

He said he had an intense preoccupation with Miss Tweedie and the children and had a tendency to deny or block off reality.

The features themselves were not abnormal, but the intensity in which they appeared was. His relationship with Miss Tweedie and bringing them and the children together as a family was a strong preoccupation and the main commitment of his life, said Dr Ding.

His role in the domestic scene excluded other things that a young person might want, such as looking at his own life and where he was going. This preoccupation made him sensitive to anything that threatened his goal but his process of denial lessened the effect. “He knew of events which showed things were not going so well, but somewhere in. his mind those factors would be grossly minimised,” Dr Ding said.

Final submissions from Messrs Hall and Saunders will be heard today, as well as the summing up by Justice Tipping.

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