A jury is expected to retire today to consider its verdict in the case of a local man who stabbed his brother-in-law to death.
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Yesterday prosecutor Carolyn Davenport invited the seven-man, five-woman panel to find Paul Arthur Clark guilty of manslaughter over the death of Timothy Raymond McKinnon, 49, early on June 24 last year.
The NSW Supreme Court at Dubbo was told last week that Mr Clark stabbed his wife’s brother 13 times after Mr McKinnon came to the Clarks’ residence, 20km south of Dubbo, at about 1am in the morning and attacked the accused, breaking eight of his ribs.
Mr Clark, 53, who has pleaded not guilty to murder, claimed Mr McKinnon tried to kill him and the stabbing was an act of self-defence.
Yesterday, when she gave her closing address in the trial, Ms Davenport told the jury:
“I won’t insult you by suggesting that what Tim McKinnon did that night was excusable.”
However she said Mr Clark’s reaction - to get a knife and stab him - was done in anger and not in self-defence.
She told the jury tapes of an interview with police and a 000 telephone call made soon after the stabbing proved Mr Clark acted in anger.
She suggested a verdict of manslaughter would be appropriate, because “the Crown accepts that the accused was provoked”.
“Set upon in your own home at that hour, going through a near-death experience, why in the world wouldn’t you be angry?” defence counsel Malcolm Ramage QC responded.
When he gave his closing address Mr Ramage told the jury Mr Clark was “an honest man placed in a dilemma not of his own doing”.
“My client didn’t wish him dead ... nothing my client can do will bring him back now,” he said.
Mr Ramage described Mr McKinnon as “mentally deranged” and said that on the night of his death he was “a man who seemed to be completely out of control”.
He invited the jury to accept Mr Clark’s account of events.
“You will be impressed by his honesty ... he certainly doesn’t lay it on thick,” he said.
He said the prosecution had not offered any scenario that explained the multiple knife wounds to Mr McKinnon’s legs and told the jury they should believe Mr Clark’s explanation that he had been on the ground holding the knife up while Mr McKinnon stomped on him.
The defence counsel pointed out that when Mr McKinnon left the home after Mr Clark got the knife, he did not run towards the vehicle in which he had travelled to the property, but ran into the darkness of the garden where another altercation between the pair took place.
“Rather than having quit the scene ... the deceased was endeavouring to kick or stomp on him,” Mr Ramage said.
Yesterday afternoon Justice James Wood began giving his summary of the evidence, to be finished today, after which the jury will be retired to consider a verdict.