The daughter of a violent criminal has been acquitted of his murder after she stabbed him in the heart during an argument.
Maddison Hickson, 23, admitted knifing Michael Carroll in a Maitland home on January 16, 2021 but had claimed it occurred after her father came at her with the weapon.
"I stabbed him ... to protect myself," she testified before the Newcastle Supreme Court jury.
"I just wanted him to stop."
After nine hours of deliberations, the jury agreed, finding her not guilty of murder on Tuesday afternoon.
Hickson testified said she "felt, like, a pop and I heard a splash" and dropped the knife in the living room, before running away.
Multiple witnesses said an argument had broken out between the pair in which Mr Carroll called his daughter a "slut" and a "dog" before walking towards her aggressively with a knife.
While prosecutors argue she grabbed a knife and murdered him out of anger, Hickson said she had been trying to mend her relationship with her father.
He hadn't previously been violent towards her but had a rap sheet that included several violent crimes that resulted in prison time nearly every year of his adult life.
Mr Carroll punched and tried to kick a pregnant partner over her refusal to get an abortion and had used a baseball bat and pliers to assault another person.
Hickson's lawyer told jurors that outlining Mr Carroll's criminal history wasn't to denigrate him.
Rather, it showed his tendency to act violently after drug use and to feel the need to retaliate against any perceived slights against him.
Hickson gave evidence that her father had been arguing with someone else in the home before she told Mr Carroll to "get the f*** out" and "shut the f*** up, this is not your house, have some respect".
Hickson's friend, Taylah McDonald, was found not guilty of misleading police about the knife used in the stabbing and being an accessory after the fact to murder.
She had denied placing the weapon in a dishwasher and starting a wash cycle.
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