Woman stabbed brother to ‘get sleep back’

Press, 19 July 1988, Page 18

Woman stabbed brother to ‘get sleep back’

PA Auckland A woman who had spent time in Carrington Psychiatric Hospital, stabbed her brother because he “took her sleep away,” the High Court at Auckland was told yesterday.

Crown Prosecutor, Mr Kieran Raftery, said Sala Tomai, aged 34, tried to murder her brother, Tulia Tomai, in their parents’ Grey Lynn house where they both lived with other family members. Opening the trial, Mr Raftery said that after dinner on January 14 Tomai stabbed her brother in the back while he was sitting at the table doing a crossword.

Tomai told a police officer she wanted to kill Tulia because he took her sleep and if he died, she would get her sleep back. She pleaded not guilty but Mr Raftery said he did not expect the stabbing would be disputed. Defence counsel, Mr Charles Cato, would call evidence to show Tomai was insane at the time of the attack.

Mr Tomai said he had been sitting in the dining room when he felt a thump on his back. He turned round and saw his sister holding a knife that had blood on it. Her face looked terrible.

He tried to get to the television room but collapsed. His father and wife came to help him. Cross-examined by Mr Cato, he said his sister had been mentally ill on occasions and about 1985 was committed to Carrington Hospital. She spent a lot of time on her own in her bedroom and regularly spent a lot of time walking up and down the hallway at night.

In a written statement read by Mr Justice Speight, an Auckland Hospital house surgeon, Dr Elke Mante, said the wound in Mr Tomai’s left shoulder was about cm long and 3cm deep. An X-ray taken suggested it was deeper than originally thought but Dr Mante considered Mr Tomai suitable for discharge after three or four days in hospital.