“If only you got there 20 minutes earlier when I first called you,” a woman on trial for murdering her boyfriend said to police on the day of the incident.
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A Supreme Court jury in Dubbo heard evidence from 10 witnesses yesterday about the death of a 19-year-old Aboriginal man on February 18 last year, allegedly killed by his now 28-year-old girlfriend.
The incident occurred at a camp in Hidden Valley on the outskirts of Lightning Ridge, where the woman allegedly stabbed her partner in the neck with a large hunting style knife.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder, with the defence submitted she wounded him to protect herself and her three-year-old son.
The two police officers who were called out to the scene gave evidence to the court yesterday about the day in question.
Senior Constable Jodi West told the jury she had called another officer in to go to Hidden Valley with her after receiving a “priority two” call over the police radio.
She explained to the jury that a priority two call was a serious one and a matter of some urgency.
After recounting the day up until she took the accused to the Lightning Ridge Hospital, she said the woman had accused them of not coming soon enough.
“If only you got there 20 minutes earlier,” she said. “I called you like three times.”
The defence put to the witness that the accused was blaming police for not arriving quickly enough.
Senior Constable Simon Cook was on the job with Constable West and also gave his account of the day.
He told the court he was the first police officer to find the alleged victim after he had been stabbed.
He said a neighbour of the couple had guided him to where the injured man was.
When they arrived, the young man was lying on his back and Constable Cook noticed a lot of blood.
The man said to Constable Cook, “help me”.
Constable Cook told the court he turned the man on his side to clear his airways and applied pressure to the wound.
He said the deceased told him he couldn’t breathe and not long after that he started frothing at the mouth before dying.
A builder who was working on the house, a man who the couple had lived with before they moved to Hidden Valley and the neighbour of the deceased’s grandmother were called to give evidence about what they had observed about the couple’s relationship.
Two women who helped the woman after she was released from the police station on February 19 last year gave evidence about what the accused told them about the incident.
Two neighbours in Hidden Valley were called, one to give evidence about hearing the man’s cries for help on February 18, and the other to give evidence about what the accused had told her.
The trial continues today.