Palmerston woman avoids jail for resisting arrest, drug/driving offences after stabbing charge dropped

A WOMAN who was wrongly accused of stabbing her partner in the back has avoided jail for resisting arrest after prosecutors dropped a charge of causing serious harm.

Jessica Lee Horne, 36, pleaded guilty in the Darwin Local Court to resisting police, cannabis possession and drug-driving. Picture: Katrina Bridgeford

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A WOMAN who was wrongly accused of stabbing her partner in the back has avoided jail for resisting arrest after prosecutors dropped a charge of causing serious harm.

Jessica Lee Horne, 36, pleaded guilty in the Darwin Local Court to resisting police, cannabis possession and drug-driving after the more serious charge was withdrawn yesterday.

Prosecutor Luke McLaughlin told the court police were called after a series of loud arguments between Horne and her then partner in Gray on December 23 last year.

At one point, Mr McLaughlin said the man went to a neighbour’s house and called out for help after being stabbed in the back while Horne screamed out for him to “stop faking it”.

When police arrived and tried to arrest Horne, she dropped to the ground and locked her knees under the police car before she was eventually “ground stabilised” and handcuffed.

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A week later, Mr McLaughlin said, Horne was negotiating a sweeping bend on her scooter while high on cannabis and meth when she crashed into the back of a parked LandCruiser.

Horne’s lawyer, Shane McMaster, said she spent about four months in hospital after the “horrific” accident in which she smashed the rear window of the LandCruiser with her head.

He said Horne had struggled with several mental illnesses as well as “a pretty terrible time in terms of DV situations” but had now “done much to turn her life around”.

Horne was on a good behaviour bond for assaulting a police officer when the December incidents occurred but Mr McMaster said the circumstances of her breaching that order were “very much out of the ordinary”.

“She was herself involved in a DV situation with an ex-partner, she’s no longer with that person, police attended, that ex-partner was seriously assaulted by somebody else and in effect, she was accused of being the person who had stabbed him,” he said.

“When you consider that with the background of mental health issues she has, in my submission, it’s not surprising that she took issue (with being arrested).”

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In handing Horne $1800 in fines, judge Greg Cavanagh said he also took into account the four days she already spent in custody following the stabbing charge.

“If she comes back again for this kind of behaviour she’ll go back to jail but I think in all the circumstances today’s matters can be dealt with by way of conviction and fine,” he said.

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