Maddison Hickson gives evidence in trial after pleading not guilty to murdering father Michael Carroll

Maddison Hickson has told a jury that she “just wanted him to stop” when she inflicted the stab wounds which killed her father and violent criminal Michael Carroll.

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Maddison Hickson has told a jury she thought her father “was going to kill me” before she wrestled a knife from his grasp and stabbed him.

The now 25-year-old gave evidence in the NSW Supreme Court in Newcastle on Wednesday about the moment an argument with her father, violent criminal Michael Carroll, turned deadly in the lounge room of a friend’s Tenambit house.

Ms Hickson said her father had called her a “f**king slut” and a f**king dog” before she replied Mr Carroll was the “dog” – a term for an informant – and her father got out of his seat and said “I should bash your f**king head in”.

She told the court Mr Carroll then walked over to her armed with a knife before they wrestled for the blade and “I got the knife off him”.

When asked what she did, Ms Hickson said during a series of questions by Public Defender Peter Krisenthal, “I stabbed him” to “protect myself” and that she “just wanted him to stop”.

“I didn’t think there was any other choice,” Ms Hickson told the court.

A court has heard Michael Carroll died of two stab wounds to the heart.

Ms Hickson has pleaded not guilty to murdering her father in January last year, raising self defence in a trial where she has admitted twice stabbing Mr Carroll inside a Tenambit home belonging to her friend, Taylah Renae McDonald.

Prosecutors allege Ms Hickson was acting out of “anger or frustration” and not self defence when she stabbed her father.

Ms McDonald is also facing trial and had pleaded not guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder and a back-up charge of hindering the discovery of evidence, denying the prosecution’s claims that she put the knife used in the stabbing in a dishwasher and later misled police.

On Wednesday, and after the prosecution finished its case, Justice Ian Harrison directed the jury to find Ms McDonald not guilty of the accessory charge.

She remains on trial on the charge of hindering the discovery of evidence.

Taylah Renae McDonald. Picture: NSW Police.

The court also heard on Wednesday of Michael Carroll’s criminal history for violence which involved repeated domestic assaults on Maddison Hickson’s mother, including one when she was pregnant.

It also heard how Michael Carroll and another man had bashed another person with a baseball bat before Carroll had used “needle-nose pliers” to pinch the man’s skin, thighs and scrotum.

Ms Hickson took the witness stand on Wednesday morning, telling the court that she had still wanted a relationship with her father despite his stints in jail.

She said when her father had been released from custody in 2020, he had appeared “normal” and “happy” but became “more paranoid” and “more angry” after he started taking drugs again.

She said her father had appeared normal on the day he died – January 16, 2021 – before a visit from her friend Aaron Thorley changed the “mood”.

The court had earlier heard from Mr Thorley that he had wanted to speak with Ms Hickson because Michael Carroll, a long-term friend of his father’s, was acting paranoid about being filmed, his phone being bugged and someone having a contract on his life.

Ms Hickson told the court that her father had called Aaron Thorley “a f**king f****t” and was raising his voice before she told him to “shut the f**k up”.

She said she had gone into Ms McDonald’s room and grabbed her keys and phone before the exchange occurred where they called each other “dogs”.

Maddison Hickson has pleaded not guilty to murdering her father Michael Carroll.

Ms Hickson said Mr Carroll then got out of his chair armed with the knife and approached her, although she could not describe how quickly he was moving because “to me it plays in my head in slow motion”.

“I thought he was going to kill me,” Ms Hickson said.

When asked why she thought she was in danger despite her father never being violent to her in the past, she replied it was “because he was coming at me with a knife.”

Ms Hickson said she did not remember stabbing her father, saying she felt “like a pop and felt like a splash”.

She said she then ran outside to where Mr Thorley and a second man were, telling the court she was “running for my life” and was “still scared of him and didn’t think he would stop”.

The court has heard Mr Carroll stumbled out of the house, collapsed on the front lawn and died of two stab wounds to the heart.

Under cross-examination from Crown prosecutor Brian Costello, Ms Hickson denied she had possession of a knife during the entire altercation.

She denied the assertion that Mr Carroll was never armed with a knife and she did not know how she kept possession of her phone and keys in one hand while wrestling the knife from her father.

And she denied that she was scared of Mr Carroll when she told him to “get the f**k” out of the house or when she called him a “dog” because “I didn’t think he would really hurt me”.

Earlier on Wednesday, one of Mr Carroll’s relatives spoke of being beaten and given electric shocks by the man he termed “his uncle”.

The trial is being heard in the NSW Supreme Court in Newcastle.

Russell Carroll told the court the dead man had once used a baseball bat with nails sticking out of it to beat him for over 40 minutes.

He also spoke of another time Michael Carroll had placed items into a live electrical cord and “zapped him” in an assault which he thought would cause some of his bones to break “from the inside”.

“He was a paranoid person but when things were good things were good but things literally can change like that,” Russell Carroll said, clicking his fingers.

He later added: “It can go from zero to 100, it can go from everything is all sweet to the next minute your life or someone else’s life is in danger.”

The trial continues.