Teen who stabbed close friend in the heart in the Bagot Community pleads guilty to manslaughter

A TEENAGE boy who killed ‘one of his closest friends’ by stabbing him in the heart at the Bagot Community last year has pleaded guilty to manslaughter

Constance Puruntatameri’s 15-year-old son died of a single stab wound to the heart in May last year. Picture Katrina Bridgeford.

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A TEENAGE boy who killed “one of his closest friends” by stabbing him in the heart at the Bagot Community last year has pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

The Supreme Court heard the now 16-year-old, who cannot be named, had been drinking and smoking cannabis with the 15-year-old victim in the lead up to the fatal stabbing on May 19.

Crown prosecutor Matt Nathan SC said as the boys were walking around the community that night, another boy heard the victim threaten to “bitz” the 16-year-old, which he thought referred to a fight.

But Mr Nathan said another boy believed the term referred to housebreaking.

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When the group arrived outside one of the houses, the 16-year-old said “I need to go here, you mob wait here” to which the victim responded “I’m coming” and the 16-year-old told him to “wait here”.

“At this time (the witness) observed the offender holding a knife in his right hand and saw him stab the victim to the centre of his chest using a backhand motion,” Mr Nathan said.

Another witness then heard the killer say “you’re dumb for doing that, you shouldn’t play with knives” and the victim stumbled backwards onto the road and collapsed.

Mr Nathan said the 16-year-old started screaming for help and called an ambulance, saying “he’s been stabbed, he’s playing with knives” and later told another boy “I think he bumped the gate and he stabbed himself”.

He later went with his father to speak to police and was arrested and remanded in custody.

Mr Nathan said one of the fundamental issues in sentencing would be “the absence of any significant provocation or reason behind what was done”.

“It would appear, particularly given how close the deceased and the accused were, that any of the verbal toing and froing is really of little consequence,” he said.

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The boy’s lawyer, Marty Aust, said while the offending was very serious, the court should take into account its context, including his client’s ”significant brain damage”.

“It’s a 15-year-old boy with ADHD, with FASD, with trauma, who has had a very, very difficult upbringing,” he said.

“It’s not as if a child from a wealthy high school in Sydney and his mate who have had every advantage in the world and are just joking around and have been safe all their lives and never felt fear and never self-harmed and never been locked up repeatedly, just walks up and stabs his mate — it’s just not the same, it’s not even remotely the same.”

The boy returns to court for sentencing in April.

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