Jailed for drunken rage knife attacks

A CAIRNS man slashed two people with a knife in a drunken rage after he was told to leave an Earlville home.

Hank Marlin Davis was jailed for two years and 10 months over the violent attack.

He’d been drinking with others at the house and, when he was told to leave because he was too drunk, he became angry.

Crown prosecutor Eddie Coker told the Cairns District Court that Davis went to the kitchen, grabbed three knives and “said he was going to stab everyone”.

Davis calmed down but then when he saw the first victim on the phone to police he struck her across the face with a knife causing a shallow cut.

When a man intervened, Davis swung at him with a knife causing cuts to his face, neck and shoulder. His hand was also fractured.

Davis was struck over the head with a glass bottle.

Defence barrister Rochelle Logan told the court: “He was extremely drunk, he recalls nothing of the night or the afternoon.”

The court was told that he turned to alcohol after not dealing with the death of his mother, who was raped and murdered when he was 11.

“It was justified for the person to strike you given you were attacking people in that house,” Judge Brendan Butler AM SC said.

Davis pleaded guilty to one count each of wounding and assault causing bodily harm while armed on January 11 this year. He has already spent 214 days in custody and will be released on parole on January 22 next year.