Jasmine Robbo: Katherine mum jailed for stabbing cousin in neck, making her a quadriplegic

A 27-year-old Big Rivers woman who became intoxicated at a family birthday party stabbed her cousin twice with a butter knife, the second blow penetrating into the victim’s spinal cord, a court has heard.

Katherine mother of three Jasmine Robbo, 27 (depicted here circa 2015). Picture: Facebook

A 27-year-old Big Rivers woman who became intoxicated at a family birthday party stabbed her cousin twice with a butter knife, the second blow penetrating into the victim’s spinal cord, a court has heard.

Katherine woman Jasmine Robbo pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court at Darwin to a charge of unlawfully causing serious harm to her 32-year-old cousin.

The stabbing occurred on June 23 last year at Katherine Low Level Nature Reserve during a booze-soaked family birthday party, Robbo’s sentencing hearing before Justice Judith Kelly on November 14 heard.

Robbo and her cousin, known as AB, became involved in a fist fight about 6pm over “jealousy” issues, but were separated by family members, Justice Kelly told the court.

However, Robbo then picked up a butter knife and stabbed AB in the ribcage, causing a laceration.

A second swing missed, but the third, aimed at the base of AB’s neck, connected flush and “deeply penetrated” towards the spine, causing AB to “slump down in a sitting position”.

Police and paramedics were called, and Robbo was arrested.

The injuries caused to AB by the stab to her neck were catastrophic, Justice Kelly said.

The blow severed the spinal cord at the C5 vertebrae, leading to a subarachnoid haemorrhage and leakage of cerebropinal fluid.

The Katherine Low Level Nature Reserve, where Jasmine Robbo stabbed her cousin in the neck on June 23, 2023. Picture: Ray F/ Tripadvisor

AB spent two months connected to a ventilator and suffered a number of infections, as well as deep vein thrombosis.

Attempts to surgically fuse the damaged spinal cord were unsuccessful, leaving AB, a mother of three, a quadriplegic.

“She is going to need 24-hour treatment and care for the rest of her life,” Justice Kelly said.

“What you did, you did in anger, uncontrolled, while you were intoxicated, but it has had the most devastating effect on this woman’s life.”

In mitigation, the judge told the court Robbo had no criminal history and a “very deprived” childhood.

Born in Alice Springs but growing up between Katherine and Kalkarindji, Robbo was shunted between various family members and experienced “lack of supervision, deprivation... [and witnessed] alcohol abuse and violence in the family,” Justice Jelly said.

The court heard the defendant gave birth to the first of her three children at the tender age of 16, but Robbo suffered “significant domestic violence” at the hands of the children’s father, and also became an alcoholic during the course of the relationship, which ended in 2022.

A psychological report diagnosed Robbo as experiencing complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which left her with difficulties regulating her emotions and impulsivity, Justice Kelly told the court.

Robbo’s deprived upbringing and complex PTSD lessened her moral culpability (known as the Bugmy principle), Justice Kelly found.

She sentenced Robbo to five years’ imprisonment, backdated to her arrest and remand last June.

Justice Kelly ordered the jail term suspended after 18 months, for an operational period of three and a half years, conditional upon Robbo being under the supervision of a Probation and Parole officer, and abstain from alcohol consumption.

Originally published as Jasmine Robbo: Katherine mum jailed for stabbing cousin in neck, making her a quadriplegic