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Newcastle Herald
Newcastle Herald
National
Gabriel Fowler

Supreme court jury told fatal stabbing at Raymond Terrace was "deliberate"

The scene of Jason Adams' death in Raymond Terrace in February, 2020. Inset, Mr Adams and Lily Ridgeway, who is on trial in the Supreme Court.

THE stabbing of Jason Adams may not have been 'extensively planned' but it was deliberate and intentional, a supreme court jury has been told.

The case against Lily Ridgeway, who has pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Adams, was summed up for the jury on Thursday.

The crown's case is that Mr Adams was unarmed when he arrived at the Payton Street house at about 5.20am on February 29, 2020, which he'd been kicked out of the night before.

He was saying to Ms Ridgeway 'Go on, stab me', making it plain he knew she was armed with a knife. "What happened next was that Ms Ridgeway then deliberately thrust the knife into his chest out of anger and frustration," Crown prosecutor Brian Costello said.

"She had had enough of Mr Adams at that point, she was telling him to 'F--- off and leave us alone' and he was calling her a 'black dog', which he should not have done.

"Afterwards she took some pleasure in having done that as she said, "Oh babe, you should have felt that, it felt so good."

She then fled from the scene into bushland, disposing of the knife, and eventually hiding out in a hotel where she was arrested by police two days later, Mr Costello said.

Ms Ridgeway was lying when she told police that she blacked out during the incident and had no memory of how Mr Adams was wounded, he said

She later told police during the same interview that she ran and hid because she was scared. "Um, you know. I just took a life, I didn't know I'd taken a life yet ... I didn't know anything."

The day after the incident she told James Carmody, a friend of Mr Adams', "Sorry, I fucked up" and also told her cousin that "he ran at me first".

None of the neighbours gave evidence of hearing a loud and aggressive male, only the screams of a female in the moments after the stabbing, Mr Costello said.

In her first statement to police, Nikita Hanson, whose house Mr Adams had been living and outside which the incident occurred, said she heard Ms Ridgeway make the comment "that felt so good" after she stabbed Mr Adams.

During the trial she denied that Ms Ridgeway used those last four words. However, Mr Costello said she had also given another version of events in which she said she found the comment disturbing, saying: "The comment made me so distressed that I vomited in the front yard".

"I have said I don't remember the stabbing, but I do, I remember it clear as day, ... I remember the expression, I remember the tone ... it was putrid."

Defence Barrister Lizzie McLaughlin said the crown had not proven its case, and that the evidence supported the possibility that Mr Adams had walked into the knife which Ms Ridgeway was holding.

Ms Hanson's evidence was that there was no movement of Ms Ridgeway's arm, and that Mr Adams moved towards her until he was "right in her face".

The forensic evidence was also consistent with a person walking into the knife, Ms McLaughlin said. The trial continues.

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