Friend urged to evict flatmate before death

THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019 themercury.com.au SUBSCRIPTIONS 1300 696 397 WARRANE man Paul Thompson was being abused by a man staying with him in the 18 months before he died, and should have evicted the man, a close friend of Mr Thompson’s has told Hobart Coroners Court.

Mr Thompson, 57, died on January 21 last year in his Warrane unit. An inquest into his death before Coroner Olivia McTaggart opened yesterday.

A man staying with Mr Thompson at the time, Lawrence Charles Kean, now 54, was charged with manslaughter, a charge he pleaded not guilty to and which was later dropped.

Ms McTaggart told Mr Thompson’s brother, sister and brother-in-law, who have come to Hobart from Sydney for the inquest, that Mr Thompson’s death was a suspected homicide.

Counsel assisting the coroner, Jane Ansell, told the court forensic pathologist Donald Ritchie had identified four possible causes of Mr Thompson’s death, and it was this uncertainty that meant criminal charges against Mr Kean were not able to proceed.

“On this inquest we’re looking at causation,” Ms Ansell said.

The court heard Mr Thompson had a number of health problems, and had a metal plate inserted in his head following a serious assault in NSW in 2010.

A friend of Mr Thompson’s told the court he had known Mr Thompson since 2000, but they had been particularly close in the eight years before Mr Thompson’s death.

The court heard Mr Thompson and Mr Kean were both alcoholics and would drink alcohol and smoke cannabis together.

The friend, who asked not to be named, said he had concerns about the relationship between the two, that he had warned Mr Thompson a number of times, and had urged him to evict Mr Kean.

“I knew Paul was going to die from Lawrie, and I mentioned it quite regularly,” he said.

“The only way I can describe it was like an abusive relationship between a man and a wife, where the lady would make excuses for the husband for beating her.

“I wanted the police involved but Paul didn’t.”

He also told the court he was speaking to Mr Thompson on the phone on the Saturday before his death.

“For some reason, Lawrie got on the phone and he was bragging about how he punched Paul in the head the night before.

“I said, ‘you know that the slightest tap on the head can kill him’,” the friend said, referring to Mr Thompson’s previous head injury.

Mr Kean’s lawyer Rochelle Mainwaring suggested to the friend that Mr Kean was not bragging, but the friend did not agree.

Mr Thompson’s next-door neighbour Yvonne Caller told the inquest she heard “yelling and screaming” coming from Mr Thompson’s unit about 11.45pm on January 21 last year, then heard an “almighty thump”.

Ms Caller said Mr Thompson had previously told her “he’d had enough of him [ Mr Kean] being in his unit and he wanted him out”.

The inquest continues today.