A wounded man who fatally stabbed his attacker once in the leg during a brawl sparked by a damaged sofa has been found not guilty of murder on the grounds of self-defence.
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Heath Kevin Parkinson, 35, was repeatedly stabbed by Christopher "Mick" Quirk, 41, before grabbing the knife during the fight in a street at Cowra, in central NSW, in March 2018.
In finding him not guilty of murder, Justice Stephen Campbell said Mr Parkinson was subject to a "determined, indeed frenzied, attack by a drug-fuelled assailant" and then struggled to disarm him.
"Although the law deplores violence of any type, it recognises violence as justified when it constitutes a reasonable response in or to the circumstances as the accused perceived them to be," he said.
"It is hard to conceive of a clearer case."
Mr Parkinson and his friend Adam Dennis Coats, 45, faced a judge-alone trial in the NSW Supreme Court sitting in Albury.
In a judgment published on Thursday, Justice Campbell acquitted Coats of causing grievous bodily harm to Mr Quirk with the intent to murder him.
He had struck Mr Quirk with a mattock handle after he was stabbed.
"I think it highly possible that his case falls into that category of an intoxicated person who acted without turning his mind to the achievement of any specific purpose," the judge said.
Coats previously pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and will be sentenced at a later date.
Justice Campbell said the fatal stabbing occurred after a "particularly acrimonious dispute" during which Mr Parkinson became extremely angry at finding his stored sofa had been badly damaged by a sharp instrument.
Mr Parkinson issued an ultimatum for Mr Quirk to see him in the street about the matter.
"It was obviously implicit in this ultimatum that there was to be a reckoning of differences by fist-fight."
But Mr Quirk armed himself with a knife and baseball bat while Mr Parkinson was unarmed.
After Mr Parkinson was stabbed in the chest and abdomen, he managed to get the knife and stab his attacker once in the lower left thigh.
"Ordinary persons are not anatomists and are unlikely to appreciate the real risk of cutting the femoral artery and vein that a stab wound to the leg involves," the judge said.
Mr Parkinson had been under severe attack "by a determined man fuelled by the insidious drug ice, armed with a knife" who had got the better of him and was on top of him.
"Doubtless this insidious drug heightened his levels of aggression and determination to harm Mr Parkinson."
The judge accepted the account of a witness who said Mr Quirk was "a force to be reckoned with" and "a man on a mission".
"Finally, while this may be hurtful and hard for those who loved Mr Quirk to hear, he went to the rendezvous intent on inflicting grievous bodily harm on Mr Parkinson, if not to kill him."
Australian Associated Press
