A WOMAN who "concealed" a 30-centimetre blade and then used it to brutally stab a rival, breaking her rib, the bloody culmination of a petty neighbourhood dispute at Woodberry in 2022, has avoided being sent back to jail.
Kylie Anne Barker, 39, "pursued" the victim when she pulled up in a car outside her home in Segenhoe Street, striking her in the head and stabbing her in the side, leaving the woman thinking she was going to die.
Judge Roy Ellis had in June indicated he would sentence Barker to a maximum of three years, but adjourned the matter until Thursday to determine whether that would be spent behind bars or on an intensive corrections order and in home detention.
Barker and the victim, then 39, had become embroiled in a neighbourhood dispute that spilled into an argument over the phone and via text messages before the woman turned up outside Barker's house about 10am on August 15, 2022.
Barker ran over to the car to confront the woman in the middle of the road and the pair began pushing before Barker pulled out a 30-centimetre blade, that prosecutors said she had concealed in an act of premeditation, and stabbed the woman in the side, breaking her rib.
The woman was left bleeding in the street and thought she was going to die before she was taken to John Hunter Hospital in a critical condition.
Barker was arrested and spent two months behind bars before being granted bail.
"All I could think was 'she's going to kill me'," the woman said during her victim impact statement. "My poor kids, in a last desperate plea, they screamed 'we love you, mummy' through the hospital. "I am injured for life and watching my life fall apart, while you're doing pretty good out there. "I feel like I'm being punished for the crime that you committed."
Despite an indication last time from Judge Ellis that if Barker was suitable for home detention and community service then she would likely receive an intensive corrections order, DPP solicitor James Larkin still pushed for her to be sentenced to full-time imprisonment on Thursday.
Mr Larkin said Barker had concealed the knife and there was "a degree of premeditation and planning" and the only adequate punishment was a jail term.
But Judge Ellis said the community would be best served by rehabilitating Barker and that would be more likely to occur if she received an ICO and could get counselling.
He ordered she serve a three-year ICO, with the first 18-months on home detention and said she must perform 200 hours of community service.
