Michael Lichaa: assault hearing legal fight over key evidence ensues
A court has heard a former NRL star accused of assaulting his partner allegedly pressured her to change her story about the incident in a legal fight over key evidence in the case.
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Police will allege a former NRL star charged with assaulting his ex-partner pressured her to sign a document saying nothing happened, a court has heard during a legal fight over key evidence.
Former Canterbury Bankstown Bulldog Michael Lichaa is defending charges of common assault and intimidation at a hearing at Sutherland Local Court after police allege he attacked his long term partner Kara Childerhouse on February 14 last year.
The alleged violence was said to have erupted after Lichaa caught Ms Childerhouse kissing his former Bulldogs teammate Adam Elliott on the porch at the couple’s Connells Point home.
Evidence in the case was set to continue before police dropped a bombshell allegation that Ms Childerhouse was pressured to sign a statutory declaration denying Lichaa had done anything to her in efforts to have the charges against him dropped.
The defence had intended to rely on Ms Childerhouse’s statutory declaration in support of Lichaa’s case that he did not assault her – but police prosecutor Sgt Breckenridge has now sought to have that document deemed inadmissable as it was allegedly made under duress.
The court has now turned to a voir dire – a process in which the admissibility of evidence is argued – to resolve whether or not the defence may rely upon the statutory declaration.
Ms Childerhouse’s mother Robyn was called to give evidence about what she knew about the circumstances under which Ms Childerhouse signed the statutory declaration in February 2021.
“Michael was pressuring her to have the AVO dropped, he wanted to change it so that he could see her,” Mrs Childerhouse told the court.
“She felt worried and scared because he was threatening to kill himself.”
Mrs Childerhouse told the court Ms Childerhouse had indeed told her at one stage that nothing happened between her and Lichaa – but later divulged allegations of violence.
In the days between the incident and Lichaa’s first court appearance, Ms Childerhouse alleged to her mother that Lichaa had pushed her and caused her head to hit the wall, then pulled her by the hair to the floor inside their house.
Mrs Childerhouse told the court her daughter had initially said she felt she had no choice but to sign the statutory declaration stating nothing happened in efforts to have the charges dropped.
But days later, after she signed a document allegedly scripted by Lichaa’s lawyers and handed to her to write out herself and sign, Mrs Childerhouse told the court Ms Childerhouse engaged her own lawyer due to anxiety over her belief she had signed a document that she did not agree was truthful.
“She was very adamant that Michael was not taking any accountability, that he was dismissing everything that happened that was the morning of the 17th (when he first appeared in court),” Mrs Childerhouse said.
“After the court date after Kara decided that she did not want the statutory declaration used because it wasn’t true, she also was talking about the AVO, she did not want it lifted.”
The hearing continues.
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