Kill plea changed to guilty

IN an unexpected turn of events, Stuart Matthew McKnight has now pleaded guilty to killing his elderly neighbour a week into his Supreme Court trial.

The jury commissioned for the trial in Geelong were dismissed yesterday after it was revealed negotiations had been made and the Clifton Springs man was now pleading guilty. Mr McKnight had originally pleaded not guilty to arson and murder.

In telling the jury, Justice Michael Croucher said “there’s been a significant turn of events in this case”.

“The parties have knocked their heads together and the accused has now decided to plead guilty to manslaughter instead of murder and is also going to plead guilty to the charge of arson,” he explained.

“That leaves you free of having to deliver a verdict in this case.”

Justice Croucher explained to the jury the difference between manslaughter and murder, and thanked them for their service over the last week.

He told the court “murder requires proof the person voluntarily killed someone,” whereas “manslaughter requires a different state of mind”.

Crown prosecutor Nicholas Papas, QC, said the prosecution intended to present victim impact statements and their full argument before a plea hearing on Friday.

“We’ll point out in our opening the features that obviously exist that link him (the accused) to what happened,” he said.

“He was in there, the deceased’s blood was on him and his DNA was on what was probably the murder weapon.”

During the trial, the court heard the victim, Graham Stevenson, suffered burns, severe head injuries, a brain injury and was stabbed by a carving fork before his home was set on fire on May 19, 2016.

Mr Papas said yesterday the injuries that caused Mr Stevenson’s death were “blunt force trauma to the head” and “burns”.

Lawyer for Mr McKnight, Shane Gardner, said the defence now intended to argue that Mr McKnight thought the victim was dead before he lit the house on fire.

“The arson occurs in panic,” Mr Gardner said. “He was affected by alcohol and he’s thinking: how do I deal with this?”

During the trial the court heard firefighters located Mr Stevenson unconscious on the floor of his house with a carving fork lodged in his torso.

Firefighters also said they saw a man walking down the smoky driveway of the burning home as they entered to fight the blaze and the same man was arrested by police afterwards.

A plea hearing will be heard before Justice Croucher on Friday and he’ll deliver his sentence on a date yet to be decided.