IN COURT: Son ‘still loves’ dad Gary Earl who stabbed him with hunting knife

Torn between his love for family and his disbelief at being stabbed at by his own father a son has shocked a courtroom with his heartbreaking victim impact statement.

In what was described by a defence barrister as being a “tragic and sad case”, an Ipswich man has faced sentencing for stabbing his son in the stomach with a hunting knife during an argument.

Gary Earl, 63, appeared in Ipswich District Court on Wednesday April 27, charged with committing a malicious act intended to cause grievous bodily harm.

The charge related to an incident which occurred in September 2020, where he stabbed his son Clinton Earl in the stomach with a nine-inch pig-hunting knife.

Gary Earl indicated to the prosecution that he intended to plead guilty to the charge in August last year.

The court heard the two men had been standing outside by a fire when, while “significantly intoxicated”, Gary became irritated with his son amid a conversation about parenting responsibilities and drinking habits.

He went inside the house, retrieved the knife from his bedroom, and took it outside to where Clinton was standing.

The court heard Clinton grabbed the blade when his father raised it, causing a laceration to his hand, and was then stabbed in the stomach.

Other members of the family, including the older man’s four very young grandchildren, were at the house at the time. At least one child witnessed the violent acts.

Judge Vicki Loury QC told the court Clinton needed surgery to repair his injuries.

“The wound to his abdomen had penetrated the membrane which covered his abdominal organs and he required to have 40cm of his small bowel removed,” she said.

“He also required surgery to repair a severed tendon between his thumb and his second finger.”

In a victim impact statement, Clinton said he was torn between his love for his father and his disbelief at how he could have hurt him in the way he did.

“The worst of it is I loved and cared for my father and he did this to me,” the statement read.

“As a father myself, I will never understand how such an act could be committed. I thought I was going to die.”

Ms Loury said Clinton also wrote – in relation to his father – that “he still, it seems, loves you and still cares about what happens to you, and he is hopeful that you can be completely rehabilitated.”

Gary’s counsel Michael Copley described the matter before the court as being a “tragic and sad case where a man of this age resorted to such a gross act of violence against his adult son”.

Mr Copley said his client’s violent behaviour was related to a significant and traumatic brain injury he suffered after a car accident which left him hospitalised from August to October 2016.

“As a result of the traumatic brain injury his level of patience perhaps, or the level at which he becomes irritated by things, has been substantially reduced,” Mr Copley said.

“And his tolerance for things that he finds annoying was substantially reduced.”

He said Gary’s anger issues were further exacerbated by the fact he had been drinking alcohol in excess in the hours before he offended.

The Ipswich grandfather had previously been “warned” by a doctor not to drink any alcohol for two years after the car crash. From 2018 onward he would be allowed to drink no more than one or two alcoholic drinks per day.

The court heard he had been consuming about five alcoholic drinks per day at the time of the offending.

Mr Copley said Gary lived a “very productive life” until the car crash in 2016, having left school in Year 10 to become a boilermaker, married young, and raised six children with his former wife.

After spending more than 19 months in prison on remand, the Mr Copley said he would surely “go back to living a quiet life … as a disabled man, just pottering the house that he owned in Ipswich” when released.

Ms Loury sentenced Gary to five years’ imprisonment suspended immediately for an operational period of five years.

She declared the 579 days he served between September 25, 2020 and April 26, 2022 as time served.