Lucy Johnson walks free after going armed with kitchen knife at Casuarina bus stop

Judge John Neill said the unlawful possession of knives had become ‘a matter of the gravest concern’ following the alleged murder of Declan Laverty in March.

The court heard Johnson produced a knife from inside her clothing and walked along the bus platform with it held above her head, swinging it and shouting.

A woman who swung a kitchen knife “which could very easily kill somebody” above her head during a drunken brawl at the Casuarina Bus Exchange on Tuesday has walked free on a suspended sentence.

Lucy Johnson, 18, pleaded guilty in the Darwin Local Court on Wednesday to going armed in public after she “became embroiled in fighting and abuse” at the bus stop a day earlier.

“She produced this knife from inside her clothing and she walked along the bus platform with the knife held above her head, swinging it and shouting at another female before police officers attended and she threw the knife on the ground,” Judge John Neill said.

In suspending Johnson’s four-month jail sentence immediately after she spent the night in the cells, Mr Neill said while she was a young woman with no priors, the offence was “extremely serious”.

Mr Neill said the unlawful possession of knives had “become a matter of the keenest interest to the community” and “a matter of the gravest concern” following the alleged murder of Declan Laverty in March.

“Nobody who is a resident in the NT can have missed the terrible events of earlier this year when a bottle shop attendant was stabbed in the course of his employment by someone who entered those premises to steal alcohol,” he said.

“That young man died, others have been stabbed or threatened with knives.”

Keith Kerinauia, 19, has been committed to stand trial for Mr Laverty’s murder with the Supreme Court hearing last month the case was “very close to resolution”.

In July, the Territory parliament debated a petition from Mr Laverty’s mother calling for tougher laws on weapons-related offending.

“Declan’s brutal death has had an effect on hundreds of thousands of people, in the NT and countrywide,” Ms Laverty’s wrote on the petition.

“The current system is broken – people are not safe at work, people are not safe in their homes, people are scared to go shopping.