Collingwood man Brendan Harrison jailed for killing Dhieu Manoah

A Collingwood man killed a young university graduate in an unprovoked attack, stabbing him in the back as he left the lift of an apartment.

Brendan Harrison was jailed by the Supreme Court for killing a stranger. Picture: Facebook

A Melbourne man has been jailed for killing a young refugee, who once saved a woman from a burning home, in a horrific random stabbing in 2020.

Brendan Harrison, 34, was jailed for nine years and nine months by Judge Jane Dixon in the Victorian Supreme Court on Tuesday for the manslaughter of Dhieu Manoah.

Mr Manoah, a refugee and Victoria University civil engineering graduate, had just stepped out of a lift of a Collingwood apartment building in March 2020 when Harrison fatally stabbed him in the chest, piercing his heart.

The court heard Harrison had turned his anger from a fight with his friend, Amour Maler, onto Mr Manoah.

Harrison, a regular drug user since the age of 14, became angry and aggressive toward Ms Maler after smoking a bong.

Ms Maler’s ex-partner Liban Omar, who lived in a unit upstairs in the same Hoddle Street building, came to check on her while Harrison was in the shower.

As they spoke, Harrison went to the other man‘s apartment and demanded to know where Ms Maler and Mr Omar were.

Mr Manoah was in Mr Omar’s apartment when Harrison punched him in the face as he sat on a bench in the living room.

Mr Manoah briefly left the building before he returned and was fatally stabbed by Harrison after getting out of the lift back onto Mr Omar’s floor.

“He‘s bleeding,” Harrison yelled after leaving a 12.5cm-deep wound that pierced his heart.

“You guys are dogs — you should really check on your friend.”

After Harrison left, Mr Omar and some friends found Mr Dhieu slumped against a wall near the lift.

They called triple zero and attempted CPR, but Mr Manoah died at the scene.

Harrison was arrested that evening at his aunt’s unit in the same building and was initially charged with murder.

After being committed to a trial in the Supreme Court Harrison pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter in the Supreme Court on September 3.

Mr Manoah was born in South Sudan and was the eldest of eight children. The family spent time in a Kenyan refugee camp and his father died in 2004.

They migrated to Australia in 2005 and Mr Manoah was granted Australian citizenship in 2011. In 2013 he graduated from a Civil Engineering degree at Victoria University.

In 2018 he made headlines for rescuing a woman from her burning home in Sunshine West.

In a victim impact statement, Mr Manoah’s mother described the devastation his death had caused the family.

She said Mr Manoah had helped her raise his younger siblings after the death of his father.

Mr Manoah’s sister said he had visited her every week to help cook family dinners.

Another sister said she had trouble mentioning his name, because of the profound impact caused by his death.

In her sentencing remarks, Judge Dixon described Harrison’s long history of disadvantage and drug use.

She said he started drinking and smoking cannabis at 14 and started using methamphetamine in 2014.

His drug use became so bad that he began to hear voices about a year before he killed Mr Manoah.

Judge Dixon described Harrison’s prospects of rehabilitation as “not unreasonable” and said he had been employed as a peer educator while in custody.

She found his moral culpability was lessened due to his profound childhood deprivation, but remained moderately high.

Harrison will be eligible for parole in six years.

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