Man accused of bashing wife to death with concrete bollard pleads not guilty to murder
A man accused of killing his wife with a concrete bollard after the pair got into an argument over allegations of her infidelity has pleaded not guilty to murder.
A man accused of murdering his wife with a concrete bollard claims he lost his sense of self-control while arguing over her alleged infidelity, a jury has been told.
On the first day of his trial in Brisbane Supreme Court on Monday, Arona Peniamina pleaded not guilty to killing his wife, Sandra, outside their Kippa-Ring home in March 2016.
Mr Peniamina offered to plead guilty to manslaughter but the crown rejected his plea.
Mr Peniamina’s defence team said they would be relying on a defence of provocation, arguing he lost self-control during the argument with his wife.
During her opening, crown prosecutor Dzenita Balic said screams were heard around the couple’s St Ives Court address on the evening of March 31, 2016.
The court was told Mr Peniamina had confronted his wife over her alleged infidelity and the pair began fighting.
Prior to the incident Mr Peniamina had told family members of “issues” in his relationship, including his wife sleeping on her own.
Ms Peniamina had recently returned from a trip to New Zealand, and Mr Peniamina claimed a Facebook photo with another man was “proof” of her infidelity.
“You will hear him say … he had a conversation with this gentleman over the telephone,” Ms Balic said.
“The conversation was unpleasant and the two men had exchanged some not nice things in connection with his soon-to-be dead wife.
Ms Balic said Ms Peniamia armed herself with a knife during the fight but Mr Peniamina would give evidence that he grabbed the blade, cutting himself in the process, before using it to repeatedly stab her.
Photos of blood-flecked walls and doors in the home were shown to the jury.
She told the jury they would hear statements from Mr Peniamina, while he was in police custody and hospital, that he had followed his wife out of the home and pushed her onto the driveway.
“You will hear him (Mr Peniamina) say he had pushed his wife on the ground and according to him she had tried to run away from him,” Ms Balic said.
“As he grabbed and pushed her onto the ground you will also hear him say he used … the bollard to hit her to the back of the head.”
She said parts of the broken knife were found on the driveway and the tip of the blade was later extracted from Ms Peniamina’s skull.
Mr Peniamina’s defence lawyer Timothy Ryan said provocation would be the major issue in the trial.
“The defence case will be that as a result of provocation he lost self-control … and formed an intention to kill his wife and did so while in that state,” Mr Ryan said.
Mr Ryan told the jury that Mr Peniamina’s plea to manslaughter meant he accepted responsibility for unlawfully killing his wife.
He urged the jury to focus on whether the defence of provocation was established on the evidence.
The trial, before Justice Peter Davis, continues.