Teen murder-accused on trial for killing mother’s partner in Baringa

A teenage boy was “scared for his life” when he killed his mother’s partner, a jury has been told as the boy took the stand on trial for murder.

Forensics police on the scene at Baringa in September 2022. Picture: Patrick Woods.

A teenage boy was “scared for his life” when he killed his mother’s partner, a jury has been told as the boy took the stand on trial for murder.

The boy was 16 in September, 2022, when the prosecution allege he stabbed and slashed his mother’s partner 35 times to death at their Baringa home.

A Brisbane Supreme Court jury has heard throughout the boy’s trial this week how the boy had told his mother afterwards that the man “deserved it” and that she wasn’t “safe”.

The boy, now 18, began telling the jury his own account of events on Friday afternoon – including claims the man had offered him “ice” on one occasion in the months leading up to his death.

“He offered me ice once … I thought he was joking at first,” he told the jury.

The boy also claimed the man had convinced him to get out of bed for work one morning by cutting a line of cocaine on his bedside drawer.

He said the two of them had used cocaine together on more than one occasion in the months preceding the man’s death.

The man would also buy him cans of beer on occasion, which the boy would hide from his mum in various locations throughout the house, he said.

The boy told the jury that on the night of September 7, the two had been drinking together in the laundry when the man started talking about “drugs and violent stuff”.

He said his younger brother came in at one point, and the man had “kept asking if he wanted a bong”.

The boy said the man asked him to grab more weed and cut it up when he had said there was none left for his brother.

“I was scared, so I did it,” the boy told the jury.

Teenager accused of stabbing mother's partner at Baringa home in 2022

He said he then took the bong out of his brother’s hand when his brother went to smoke.

“I said my brother’s not becoming a drug addict,” he told the jury.

The boy said he had never witnessed any physical violence between his mother and the man, but that he had seen and overheard them fighting verbally after drinking on weekends sometimes.

He said that he had never seen the man be violent to anyone, but that the man would sometimes say violent things – especially when drinking.

On one occasion, he said the man had told him he had “smashed some f*gg*ts windscreen in and beat the shit out of him” – saying he had assumed the man had been talking about an event from when he was younger.

Defence barrister Charlotte Smith asked the boy why he hadn’t discussed those things with his mother, and the boy replied “I just didn’t feel like I could.”

Before calling the boy to the stand, Ms Smith reminded the jury that there would be no dispute that the boy had inflicted the injuries that killed the deceased.

She said her client’s evidence would reveal how his mother’s partner had told him things on the night of his death that caused the boy to believe he was a “real threat”.

“He will tell you about some particular threats that (the deceased) made that night,” Ms Smith said.

“(The boy’s) going to tell you about how a fight unfolded with (the deceased) that night – that he was scared for his life, that he had a knife in his pocket already.

“ … That he showed (the deceased) the knife to get (the deceased) to back off, and that a physical fight unfolded.

“He was panicked, and he was scared.”

Ms Smith said it wasn’t her client’s job to convince the jury that he had been acting in self defence.

“It’s the Crown’s job to prove beyond reasonable doubt that self defence is excluded,” she said.

The boy’s evidence will continue on Monday.

He pleaded not guilty at the start of trial to one count of murder.

Originally published as Teen murder-accused on trial for killing mother’s partner in Baringa