Appeal fails for knifing partner

A TOWNSVILLE woman who stabbed her partner with a knife, causing serious internal bleeding and nearly killing him, has made an unsuccessful bid to the Court of Appeal.

Tammy Lee- Ann Phillips was found guilty by a Townsville District Court jury last October of grievous bodily harm and common assault.

Phillips appealed the guilty verdict in the Court of Appeal but it was rejected in a judgment published last week.

Justice James Henry wrote that the couple were fighting in their backyard on November 7, 2014.

Phillips hit her ex- partner on the head with a metal G clamp, then threw it at his arm.

That night the man went fishing, then slept the night in the backyard shed.

The next morning Phillips came into the shed and started repeatedly yelling at him to get out.

The man testified that when he tried to leave, Phillips would not let him.

“They pushed and shoved each other in the course of the complainant repeatedly trying to get past the appellant to the shed’s doorway in order to leave,” Justice James wrote.

“Eventually the complainant grabbed the appellant around the throat in a chokehold in order to ‘ slow her down’ and ‘ stop her’ so he could fetch his phone and bag and leave.”

The man let go of Phillips’ neck after 10 seconds when he felt she was “starting to slip away”. He stepped back a few metres and Phillips moved behind him.

“When he turned around to commence walking towards the door he saw her immediately in front of him. In the same instant he felt a quick jab and excruciating pain to his stomach,” the justice wrote.

The man had serious internal bleeding and would have died if he hadn’t undergone an emergency laparotomy and blood transfusion.

Phillips appealed the guilty verdict on two grounds – that it was an unreasonable verdict and that the trial should have excluded four triple- zero calls she made after the stabbing.

The Court of Appeal rejected both grounds and dismissed the appeal.

“The triple- zero calls, when considered with other evidence, tended to prove the presence of the appellant at the scene in the immediate aftermath of the stabbing through to the time of arrival of the ambulance officer,” Justice James wrote.

“Such evidence was itself relevant and admissible in providing circumstantial support for the direct evidence that she was the culprit.”