Former wife of Damian Harper accused of trying to kill her and their children gives evidence

The former wife of a man charged with trying to kill her and their two young sons has told a jury she saw him holding the knife and blood on the bunk bed after she was woken by the children’s chilling screams.

UPDATE, Friday February 10:

THE former wife of a man charged with trying to kill her and their two young sons with a box cutter has told a jury she saw him holding the knife and blood on the bunk bed after she was woken by the children’s chilling screams.

“I was trying to push him away from the children. He was trying to reach the other boy and was stabbing the box cutter knife towards him,” she said while giving evidence in the Supreme Court in Burnie on Friday.

“He said ‘I’m gonna kill you, you f***ing bitch’. He then stabbed me to the neck and the back of the head.”

Damian Leslie Harper is standing trial after pleading not guilty to five charges including three of attempted murder.

It is alleged Harper drove from Hobart to Cuprona, in Tasmania’s North West, on January 22, 2019 armed with a box cutter knife.

It is alleged he broke into the house where his two sons, wife and his wife’s parents were sleeping and attacked and cut the children and their mother.

The attack stopped when Harper’s father in law intervened and then police arrived.

“I was bleeding a lot. Damian said I had ruined his reputation and called me a bitch,” she told the court. “He accused me again of being unfaithful. He was extremely angry.”

Harper’s marriage had broken down and it was the couple’s seventh anniversary when it is alleged he went to the rural property with “an intent to kill”.

The woman gave evidence in the Supreme Court in Burnie on Friday and told the court that her husband had become controlling and manipulative in the years before the alleged attack.

She told the jury that when she returned from a work trip interstate her husband accused her of being unfaithful and the marriage started to fall apart.

“He became much more controlling and accused me of having affairs. He became much more verbally aggressive. He took my phone off me,” she told the court.

“He wanted me to take a lie detector test. He would turn up at my workplace unannounced.”

By May, 2018, the woman was “quite frightened” of her husband and a police family violence order was put in place and processes had started to dissolve the marriage.

The woman asked her parents to collect her and the children from Hobart so she could leave the marital home and return to the family property.

She gave evidence that the couple had attended a meeting in Devonport the week before the alleged attack.

“We (me and children) were sitting on the floor playing a game. He knelt down on the floor and spoke to the boys. Both of them moved closer to me and one started sucking his thumb,” the woman said.

“Damian was then asked to leave the room.”

The woman told the jury she called out for her father during the alleged attack.

‘Daddy’s got a knife’

Thursday, February 9, 3.45PM: The grandmother of two young boys allegedly attacked by their father has told a jury of the piercing screams she heard that night.

In evidence on Thursday, Lynn Templar said she was in bed in her Cuprona home in January, 2019 when she heard the screams.

“It sounded very distressing. I went up and one of the boys dove into my hands. I saw Damian there and my daughter fighting him to stop him getting to the other boy who was cowering in the corner,” she told the jury.

Damian Leslie Harper has pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder in relation to the alleged attack in which he is accused of trying to kill his two young boys and his wife with a box cutter knife.

Mrs Templar told the jury she hid the children under a bed then rang the police.

She told the jury one of the boys told her “it is a very bad night and daddy has a knife”.

Earlier:

A GLENORCHY father accused of trying to slit the throats of his two young sons drove for hours with the “clear intention” of killing his wife and children, a jury has heard.

Damian Leslie Harper is standing trial in the Supreme Court in Burnie after pleading not guilty to five charges including three counts of attempted murder and one of wounding.

It is alleged the crimes took place at the home of Harper’s wife’s parents at Cuprona in North West Tasmania in January, 2019.

Harper is accused of trying to kill his wife and his two young boys and wounding his father in law.

Harper’s lawyer, defence barrister Greg Richardson. Picture: Amber Wilson

In the court on Thursday, prosecutor Linda Mason told the jury Harper had travelled from Hobart in the early hours of the morning on January 22. He had with him a cricket bat and a box cutter or Stanley knife, Ms Mason told the jury.

The court was told he entered the Cuprona property through a partially open window and went into the room where his children, then aged four and six, were sleeping.

The youngest child awoke when his father was cutting his throat, Ms Mason said in her opening address.

His screams woke the older boy on the top bunk and Harper then turned his attention to that child, the jury was told.

“While the accused was attacking the children, the mother was woken and saw her husband leaning over their son. She saw the blood. She tried to get him away and he turned his attack on her. He held her against the wall stabbing at her saying he was going to kill her,” Ms Mason said.

The woman’s screams alerted her parents and her father, who has since died, managed to fight back.

The jury was told Harper then cut at his own throat before police arrived at the scene.

“He had formed the clear intention to kill his children and wife,” Ms Mason told the jury.

The court was told Harper’s wife had decided to move home to her parents after her marriage broke down.

The jury heard the Harpers had attended an appointment in Devonport the week before the alleged attack to finalise child custody arrangements and the alleged attack took place on the couple’s seventh wedding anniversary.

Harper’s lawyer Greg Richardson told the jury the case was “unusual”.

“Virtually all the factual assertions will not be challenged. This trial is all about the mental elements. About what his state of mind was, what his capacities were,” Mr Richardson told the jury.

“The primary issue is, what on earth was going on in his mind.”

The trial continues.