A 58-year-old Perth man armed himself with a large knife and tried to kill his wife after becoming angry at her for ending their 35-year relationship and taking out a restraining order against him, the WA Supreme Court has been told.
Key points:
- The court was told the woman’s adult son rushed to protect her
- She suffered injuries to her hands, including a ruptured tendon
- The accused man denies he tried to kill her
The man, who the ABC has chosen not to name, is on trial accused of attempting to murder his wife as she lay sleeping the room of her Beeliar home, with her four-year-old granddaughter beside her, just after midnight on September 25 , 2020.
The court was told the couple’s adult son, who was staying with his mother to protect her, heard his mother’s cries for help and rushed into the bedroom.
He managed to grab his father in a bear hug and eventually forced him to drop the knife, while the woman called the police.
She had suffered injuries to her hands, including a ruptured tendon, because she grabbed the knife when her husband jumped on top of her, after entering the bedroom and turning on the light.
State Prosecutor Brett Tooker said the man had been holding the weapon at his wife’s chest while yelling things like “you’re dead, I’m going to kill you.”
Mr Tooker said the problems in the relationship started in about 2017, when the accused man started drinking alcohol heavily and mixing it with prescription medication.
The court heard the man first physically assaulted his wife in early 2018, when he put his hands around her neck, but she decided not to call the police because he promised not to do it again.
‘You better sleep with one eye open’, wife told
However, Mr Tooker said the man continued to verbally and psychologically abuse his wife who, by mid-September 2020, decided to end their relationship.
Mr Tooker said the woman told her husband to move out, but days later when he was still living at the house, police were called after she rejected his sexual advances and he said to her “you better sleep with one eye open because you’re not going to see the morning”.
He also looked at his wife and made a motion like slitting his throat before continuing to act in an intimidating way towards her.
An order banning him from the home for 72 hours was made but the court heard the man returned in the early hours of the morning and said to his wife “you don’t know how much I could get you”.
The woman then obtained an interim family restraining order which was served on her husband on September 24.
‘Spark that lit the fuse’
Mr Tooker said it was the prosecution case that “was the spark that lit the fuse” and nine hours later the accused man drove to his wife’s house armed with the knife.
The man is also charged with threatening to kill his son for allegedly saying to him, after he had restrained his father, “let me go… I can kill you as well”.
The accused man denies both charges.
His barrister, Simon Freitag SC said there was no dispute his client had made some “terrible decisions” and that he had ended up “ranting and shouting” at his wife while holding a knife.
However, Mr Freitag said the man maintained he had only wanted to scare his wife, with whom he was “trying in a very silly way” to communicate with.
“He was trying to get his point across in a drunken, stupid method and using a knife for emphasis as a tool of fear,” Mr Freitag told the jury.
He also said that while it “sounded harsh”, the man could have succeeded in killing his wife if that was what he had intended.
“She was in a very vulnerable position… she didn’t see the knife until he turned on the light,” Mr Freitag said.
Mr Freitag said the man did admit causing injuries to his wife’s hands, but he denied had intended to cause her death.
“It’s a crime of causing grievous bodily harm, not of attempted murder,” he said.
The trial is expected to run for about a week.
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