Jake Ashman tells murder trial neighbour stabbing was self defence

A Queensland man who had denied killing his neighbour has now told a court he did stab him but claims he was defending himself while on the toilet.

A young man accused of murdering his neighbour in a brutal stabbing claims he didn’t tell police what really happened because he was ‘embarrassed’.

In a startling turn of events, Jake Scott Ashman, 25, told a Rockhampton Supreme Court murder trial his former neighbour Darren Ints had walked in on him while he was going to the toilet in the bathroom they shared.

“I heard a knock on the door … I said ‘hold on, I won’t be long’,” Mr Ashman said.

“I heard Darren say ‘well, hurry up because I gotta go’.

“And I said ‘yeah, well, there’s not much I can do … and then I heard him say ‘well, hurry up or I’m going to come in there and sort something out’ so I ended up telling him to ‘f — off’.”

Mr Ashman claimed his neighbour then opened the door and entered the bathroom and, while he was pulling his pants up, he watched Mr Ints “lunge” for a yellow handled knife he’d left on the basin days prior after opening a packet of razors.

“I was just in shock because I didn’t know what was happening,” he said.

“I thought he might be on drugs or something because he was charging into the bathroom.”

Jake Scott Ashman.

Mr Ashman alleged Mr Ints then attacked him, “lunging” at him with the knife in his right hand and placing his left hand on his throat, causing him to punch back in retaliation.

“I’ve gone for the knife as I’ve hit him.” Mr Ashman said.

“I’ve got the knife off him.

“And that’s when I started stabbing him.”

When asked by his barrister Kim Bryson what he was thinking at the time of the stabbing, Mr Ashman replied: “I was just in fear for my own life.”

The same trial had previously heard Mr Ashman, who has pleaded not guilty to murder, initially claimed he found the body of Mr Ints in his Granville unit on February 17, 2019 and didn’t call police because a mystery “note” at the scene warned him not to.

A pathologist has told the trial Mr Ints suffered 34 stab wounds – four of those piercing his heart.

Mr Ashman told the court he recalled stabbing Mr Ints more than 10 times, adding that he kept going until his neighbour fell.

“He was a lot bigger than me. I had to keep going until he backed off,” Mr Ashman claimed, adding he didn’t believe Mr Ints would let him past.

Mr Ashman claimed he left Mr Ints on the bathroom floor and he dropped the knife on the floor.

He claimed he went back to his own unit and fearing Mr Ints would attack again, he locked the hallway door and his own front door before grabbing another knife with a black handle out of fear and sat on his bed for about five minutes.

“And then I thought ‘I’d better go see if he’s alive or if he’s gone or someone’s there and called the cops and stuff’,” Mr Ashman said.

According to Mr Ashman, when he returned to the neighbouring unit, Mr Ints had moved from the bathroom into his living area, on his back but still alive and that he “half woke up” and “lunged for my ankle”.

“I sort of instinctively just put the knife in his throat and then went back into my unit,” he said.

“I was still in fear that he was going to get back up and attack me.”

Mr Ashman told the court he grabbed the yellow knife off the bathroom floor and went back to his unit for 10-20 mins and was “feeling sick from all the knives and stuff and the blood in the bathroom” so he went back to the bathroom, cleaned up the blood and went to the toilet again.

He said that was when he put the knives and tea towels in a cool bag and walked down to the end of the street, leaving the evidence hidden in the bushes near the river.

The bag was discovered by a resident who spotted it in her yard after she returned home from church.

“I wanted it away from me because it made me feel sick,” Mr Ashman said.

He also told the court he thought he had been back in Mr Ints’ unit again by this time, searching for money – claiming Mr Ints owed him $20 he borrowed at Christmas time and he took the marijuana that was in a bowl on his neighbour’s bench, rolled a joint and smoked it “to calm down”.

He said he then walked to the service station to try and buy cigarettes using his own bank card and Mr Ints’ bank card – both which were declined.

When he got back, he put other items – such as the marijuana and tobacco residue – in a pillowcase with the pillow inside and threw it under the bushes outside his bedroom window because it also made him “feel sick”.

He then rested in his bed and listened to music with headphones.

When asked by Ms Bryson why he lied to police after they arrested him that day, Mr Ashman said: “I was just too embarrassed about what happened on the toilet.”

Further asked why he stabbed Mr Ints so many times he ended up with 34 wounds, he replied “so he wouldn’t get up and attack me.”

Under cross examination, Mr Ashman said he didn’t really have an issue with Mr Ints, just that he had not once cleaned the bathroom since they became neighbours.

He claimed he had cleaned it three times since moving in at Easter time in 2018.

He also claimed the yellow handled knife already had the tea towel wrapped around it when he left in the bathroom, after using it to cut open the razor package, because it had a ‘dodgy’ handle.

Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Kelso put to Mr Ashman that he was the one who instigated the physical attack by coming up behind Mr Ints in the bathroom and that he deliberately aimed for Mr Ints’s chest and neck, which Mr Ashman denied.

She suggested Mr Ints tried to push Mr Ashman back into his unit after Mr Ashman attacked him, which he also denied.

Ms Kelso then suggested Mr Ints had made it to his front door, due to the blood drop evidence inside the doorway on the floor, and Mr Ashman had pulled him back in but this was also denied.

She asked if Mr Ashman had thought he had done anything wrong, other than steal marijuana and a bank card from Mr Ints.

He replied ‘no’, saying “I know it‘s a bit violent but I did what I had to do to get back into my unit … I didn’t mean to kill him”.

Asked why he didn’t seek help, Mr Ashman said he still felt sick and didn’t want to talk to anyone and “I knew I needed to chill out”.

“It could be a day or two before I ended up ringing anyone or telling anyone what happened,” Mr Ashman said.

“I was just in that much sort of shock and fear and stuff.”

He also claimed he feared Mr Ints’ friends would attack him in retaliation after discovering what had happened.

Ms Kelso established Mr Ashman, a regular smoker, had run out of cigarettes and he wasn’t due to be paid again until Friday.

The court also heard the walls in the units were so thin that Mr Ashman could hear when Mr Ints was using the bathroom.

Justice Peter Davis will deliver his verdict in Brisbane on May 27.