Couple stab each other Man with collapsed lung tries to flee from police
A MAN and a woman who stabbed each other with the same knife have both pleaded guilty to wounding.
The pair, who can’t be named for legal reasons, shoplifted from a supermarket before drinking with friends on November 19 last year.
Hostility between the pair, a couple at the time, escalated when the woman stabbed the man in the chest with a butcher’s knife. The woman, 36, was sentenced in Townsville District Court yesterday.
Crown prosecutor Will Slack said that after the stabbing, the man became aggressive and other people in the house came to the kitchen.
“No one attended in relation to the injury at that stage. After a short period of time they all went downstairs and continued drinking,” he said.
The pair started arguing again and the man picked up the knife and stabbed the woman in the arm.
Defence barrister Harvey Walters said the wound went through the woman’s arm, leaving her with nerve damage.
Mr Slack said police arrived and the man fled. “However, as a result of the stab injury to his chest, he collapsed on the side of the road where he was located by police and transported to hospital,” Mr Slack said.
The stab wound caused a collapsed lung and the man spent three days in hospital.
Earlier that night, at 6.45pm, the pair had stolen grocery items from the Mundingburra IGA store.
The court heard that when confronted by staff, the man pushed a trolley into an employee, allowing their escape.
The woman pleaded guilty to stealing and a number of other offences, including stealing fuel from a Coles Express and driving without a licence on October 14, and stealing $ 198 worth of electronics from a Woolworths supermarket in Aitkenvale on September 23.
Mr Walters said the pair had started arguing on the way home from the IGA store, when the man “blamed ( the woman) for everything that had happened there”.
“He was pushing her, belittling her. She was then cooking in the kitchen, using the kitchen knife to cut up,” Mr Walters said. “He was continually be- rating her and going on. She said she had the knife out, telling him to stay away from her.”
Judge Gregory Lynham said he was relieved the relationship was over. “It seemed to be a relationship that was regrettably … built upon engaging in criminal activity and where they both resorted to injuring each other quite significantly with a knife,” he said.
The woman, a mother of six, was sentenced to three years’ jail. She had already served 281 days and was paroled.
The man is due to be sentenced on October 20.