Bendigo man accused of murder over an argument about Nazi weapons
A Bendigo man accused of murder after fatally stabbing an associate following an argument about Nazi handguns did one shocking thing after the attack.
A Bendigo man stabbed an associate to death while fighting on the ground following an argument about Nazi guns and then went to the pub, a court has been told.
Jarrod Frank pleaded not guilty to murder in the Supreme Court of Victoria over the fatal stabbing in King Street at Bendigo in January 2018.
The 43-year-old is accused of murdering Scott Bury as the pair fought following a disagreement about the type of ammunition used in a Nazi-issued Luger pistol, the jury was told on Tuesday.
But Mr Frank claims he acted in self-defence.
The pair made a bet about the weapon’s ammunition after running into each other at a Cash Converters and went to the victim’s home to search the web for the answer, prosecutor Grant Haywood said.
The alleged murderer showed the results of the search to Mr Bury and told him “here you go b****” and later called him a “miserable b****” when he got angry.
The 49-year-old victim grabbed two knives and struck Mr Frank with one of them but the accused went outside to try to start his car.
The court was told Mr Bury came outside armed with knives and a metal bar, which he hit the accused man with, and the pair ended up fighting on the ground.
During the fight, Mr Frank was stabbed in the torso but was able to stagger away, before he was taken to hospital where he died.
After the brawl, Mr Frank and another man at the scene took a taxi to a pub in nearby Kangaroo Flat and had a meal, the prosecutor said.
When he was arrested the next day, the accused told the police he only heard the victim was dead on the news.
“All I know is he got up and he had blood coming up out of him,” Mr Frank told police officers in a record of interview after the stabbing.
He said the blow happened when they were “tussling out the front”, he said.
Defence barrister David Gibson told jurors it was a “classic case of self-defence” and while it was accepted his client inflicted the fatal wound, it was not intentional.
“What we say is Jarrod Frank was in a life or death struggle that day,” Mr Gibson said.
His client found himself confronted and attacked with knives and with an iron bar, and it was a “fast moving, violent confrontation”, the lawyer said.
“It was all happening very quickly and Mr Frank is very clearly fighting for his life,” Mr Gibson told jurors.
The accused man sat quietly in court wearing a white shirt and grey trousers but no mask in seats usually reserved for the media during the opening arguments.
Prosecutors argue the actions were disproportionate to the threat and unreasonable.
He occasionally leaned forward during the trial but looked away when images of the victim’s injuries were shown.
It is the first criminal jury trial held in the Supreme Court for 2021 and jurors were socially distanced and wearing masks.
The trial will resume on Wednesday, with witnesses expected to give evidence.