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The Facts of the Offence

1. The facts of the offender's crime fall to be determined by the Court. Those factual conclusions which are adverse to the offender must be proved beyond reasonable doubt; favourable conclusions are assessed against the lesser standard of proof on the balance of probabilities.
2. The Crown, whilst accepting the evidence that Mr Adams was verbally abusive, including by uttering race-based taunts to the offender, argues that the Court should conclude Ms Ridgeway acted from hostility, and not because of any perception of danger. The offender contends that it should be concluded that she acted from a belief that she had to defend herself, even though her response was not a reasonable one. On the Court's conclusions, the facts establish something of a middle position between those extremities.
3. The events that led to the death of Mr Adams began with his introduction to Nikita Hanson, in February 2020. Very soon after meeting Ms Hanson Mr Adams was arrested for a driving offence and subsequently remanded in custody. He was unable to enter bail because of his homelessness. In those circumstances, and although Ms Hanson was little more than a stranger to him, Mr Adams prevailed upon her to allow him to use her address for the purposes of bail, and he was thereafter allowed conditional bail that required him to reside at her home in Payton Street at Raymond Terrace.
4. Within a couple of days of moving to Ms Hanson's address the brief friendship between Mr Adams and her had broken down, and Ms Hanson asked Mr Adams to leave. As he was bailed to her address, he was unwilling to do so and refused. It was into this fraught atmosphere that the offender inserted herself when she arrived at Ms Hanson's house, probably on 27 February 2020.
5. Nikita Hanson deposed that the offender was present on occasions when she asked Mr Adams to leave her house, and heard both his refusal to go, and threats Ms Hanson claimed he made to destroy her and her son if forced to leave her home. Ms Hanson was, however, a singularly unimpressive witness who I do not doubt comprehensively lied in her evidence. It was apparent to the Court that, having been called as a witness in the Crown case, Ms Hanson made every effort to, where she could, assist the offender and, where she could not assist her, to do her the least harm possible. Further, she was clearly using prohibited drugs at around the time of the offence, likely having acquired some on her short excursions to a service station during the night of 28 - 29 February 2020 where she obtained cash, and to two nearby houses during the course of the evening (T55:41 - 49; T56:17 - 27), and intoxication would necessarily have had an impact upon both the clarity of her contemporaneous perceptions, and her later recall. I would not accept Ms Hanson's testimony on important matters unless some other, credible, information supports it.
6. Nor do I accept the offender's account of the death of Mr Adams given to police on 2 March 2020 as reliable, even on balance. Firstly, it is an account devoid of detail of the actual stabbing, of which the offender asserts she has no memory. Secondly, although counsel for the offender described that account as the offender's "evidence", it is not evidence of what occurred on 29 February 2020, but only of what she said occurred in a hearsay account which could not be tested. Finally, Ms Ridgeway's perceptions were likely significantly affected by her consumption of drugs, and by her own traumatised state. I have had regard to what she said in her interview and accept what she said of her history and background but, as with the evidence of Nikita Hanson, I do not accept the truth of what the offender said to police as to the circumstances surrounding Mr Adams' death unless some objective support can be found for it in other credible evidence.
7. The most that the Court can conclude about the day or so leading up to Mr Adams' death is that there was disharmony between Ms Hanson and Mr Adams, probably because of their differing understandings of the nature of the relationship between them, which led to intervention by the offender to the extent of causing her relative, Mark Russell, and another man, Adam Garvie, to come to the Payton Street house on 28 February 2020 and physically eject Mr Adams from it. The offender assisted the men in evicting Mr Adams (T170), and he left the premises, during the evening on 28 February 2020.
8. On the account of witnesses who exchanged text messages or conversation with Mr Adams that night, he does not seem to have been angry about having been ejected from the premises, telling one friend that he was "not one to sit and cry" (T160:38) and "shit happens I guess" (T161:38). Such an attitude is consistent with what others have described as his manner generally, he being, in the offender's words, a "bubbly guy […] not really a fighter" (Ex. K; Q&A50).
9. It is also consistent with his early exchanges of text messages with Ms Hanson which focused - on his part - on the need to amend the bail conditions to which Mr Adams was subject, so as not to be in breach of them. For example, at 18:13:26 on 28 February 2020, Mr Adams sent Ms Hanson the following Short Message Service text message ("SMS"), reproduced as in the original (as are all text messages quoted in this judgment): "U know I was here cause I wanted to be here I was here to help you but you got so much going on and I'm just making ya angry […] all is good but we will have to go to cop shop or something to see if we can temporarily change bail so I dnt breach over weekend" (Ex. D).
10. Mr Adams had nowhere to go, and it is apparent that he spent most of what remained of the night of 28 February 2020 between a friend's home and a fast food café that was open 24 hours a day. He returned to Payton Street briefly at some stage after 2:50am on 29 February 2020 to collect some of his property, including a mobile telephone charger and drugs.
11. Trial Exhibit D establishes that, despite Mr Adams' relatively peaceful departure from Payton Street, Ms Hanson was in frequent contact with him thereafter by SMS, abusing and denigrating him. Mr Adams replied in a measured tone for most of the hours of the text exchanges, despite the vituperative nature of Ms Hanson's messages to him. He told her, for example, that there was "no point fighting", at 1am on 29 February 2020; and that he had not answered a telephone call from her because of his expectation that she would "end up just screaming" (at 1:19:31 on 29 February 2020).
12. Ms Hanson continued to subject Mr Adams to abuse by text message, notwithstanding his mild replies until, by about 4:19 that morning, he asked her to "go away" and, at 4:25am, he told her not to send any more messages to him. Ms Hanson's response to this was a tirade of spiteful text messages which eventually led to a response from Mr Adams that contained the first hint of real anger, when he sent a message at 4:51:15 saying: "U have spoken to me like a gronk all day night call me a dog yep we'll see" (Ex. D).
13. After a few more unpleasant messages from Ms Hanson, Mr Adams told her via SMS, at 4:52:57 and 4:53:49: "Now I'm pissed now we will turn it on see you soon trust me Get ya crew there now I'm on my way".
14. Even after those messages and Ms Hanson's abusive responses Mr Adams clearly wanted to draw back from any threat of conflict, telling Ms Hanson by SMS, at 5:12:17: "U think I fucking like fighting huh I fucking hate it now I've tried very hard to keep my calm now please leave me alone and I will do the same ok".
15. As she had with every other peaceable approach from Mr Adams, Ms Hanson responded with vitriol, goading, and insulting him. After receiving those responses, Mr Adams answered with a series of messages between 5:12:45 and 5:19:17 on 29 February 2020, messages interspersed with Ms Hanson's offensive replies, not quoted here. 5:12:45 "2min weak dag […] 5:13:37 On watt st now […] 5:16:53 Let's do this than aye […] 5:19:12 Yep look down ya st now 5:19:17 Who's first" (Ex. D).
16. It is evident from the messages sent by Mr Adams that he was walking towards Payton Street as he dispatched them, and it is reasonable to conclude that he must have arrived outside Ms Hanson's house at about 5:20 that morning. Precisely what happened thereafter will probably never be known because none of those who were involved are reliable witnesses, and there is enough difference and self-interest in the various accounts to reject each of them as unlikely to be accurate or credible.
17. Present in the Payton Street house at about this time were Ms Hanson, the offender, and the offender's cousin or uncle, Mark Russell. Ms Hanson deposed that she heard Mr Adams yelling out, and it is likely that, consistent with his last text messages, he did call out to Ms Hanson as he approached her house. She asserted that both the offender and Mark Russell were with her in her bedroom, which faced the street, and there is no real reason not to accept that the three were together at this time. Ms Hanson told the jury that Mark Russell and the offender both ran to the front of the house, and this is consistent with other evidence that places both in the street with Mr Adams soon after his arrival there. The offender held a knife in her hand (T87) that had a blade of between 5 - 10 centimetres in length (T88:08), or perhaps longer.
18. Ms Hanson claimed that there was an argument and Mr Adams became "angrier and angrier" (T83:04). Whilst there must have been a dispute, Ms Hanson's implicit assertion that it was only Mr Adams who became angry is not credible and I do not accept it. He may have used the offensive language Ms Hanson attributed to him in exchanges with the offender, but the Court cannot be satisfied of that, even on balance. It is not without significance that those residents of Payton Street who heard something of the incident did not confirm that an angry male was audible at any stage. Jamie Warner heard a female voice yelling and a second voice speaking quietly. Douglas Stewart, who heard arguing coming from inside the premises at 3 Payton Street on the morning of 29 February 2020, heard a male voice out in the street that sounded "kind of calm" (T182:43). The voice was not yelling and did not sound angry. Naomi Green heard a female yelling and saw a male and female having an argument in the street, although neither spoke loudly enough for her to hear what was said. Julie Lamey heard screaming coming from the direction of Payton Street at about the relevant time but could distinguish only a female voice. Craig Comyns heard voices in the vicinity of Payton Street, with a female voice yelling "in an abusive tone" (T188:24). Mr Comyns heard a male voice, but it was neither as "boisterous" nor as "loud" as the female voice. Skye Dendle lived further away on Watt Street and heard what she thought were male voices swearing. On looking out she saw what she thought were three men. It is not possible to reconcile Ms Dendle's account with the evidence of other neighbours; it was likely adversely affected by the greater distance over which she made her observations.
19. What can be accepted about events in Payton Street is that there was an argument involving the offender and Mr Adams, and the offender, who had gone out into the street armed with a knife, stabbed Mr Adams.
20. Although Ms Hanson gave an account in her evidence (at T86:45) of Mr Adams advancing onto the knife without any movement by the offender of the arm in which she held the knife, I do not accept that evidence. Her account of Mr Adams seeing the knife in the offender's hand, asking if the offender was going to stab him, and then walking forwards so that the knife entered his body is implausible at best. It entirely contradicts the ordinary experience of life that suggests that most people would take steps to avoid being stabbed, rather than to knowingly advance onto an outstretched knife, impaling the body upon it. The claim that Mr Adams did so is an absurd proposition likely invented by Ms Hanson to avoid giving evidence adverse to the offender, with all of the negative consequences that could thereafter flow to her as a person who had assisted the police. It also contradicts an earlier account given by her to police (Ex. F) and is further confirmed as unlikely by the evidence of injury.
21. Had the offender held the knife by her side in the way Ms Hanson described her as having done when the offender went from the house into the street, Mr Adams could not have been impaled upon it, even had he walked or run into Ms Ridgeway. Had she not advanced the knife in the way Ms Hanson demonstrated to police in Ex. F, it would be highly unlikely that Mr Adams would have sustained the fatal penetrating injury to the heart that he did.
22. Dr Alan Cala performed the autopsy upon Mr Adams' body and described to the jury a wound which penetrated the skin, passed through muscle on the chest wall, and went between the fifth and sixth ribs, causing injury where the knife had cut through the lower part of the fifth rib as it passed. The wound tracked through deep tissue, into the pericardial sac, and into the front of the left ventricle of the heart (T205; Ex. N). The wound continued for an observable 50 millimetres from the skin into the front wall of the heart, ending in a blood filled chamber or space, where it may have continued some further distance (T208:07 -12). The wound tracked from the left side of Mr Adams' body to the right, and slightly upwards. At least moderate force was necessary to cause such a wound (T208:42).
23. Whilst Dr Cala conceded in his evidence that it was "theoretically possible" that Mr Adams walked onto the knife, his opinion was that the injury was consistent with "some forward thrusting", and consistent with the forward thrust demonstrated by Ms Hanson in the excerpt from her interview with police that was Ex. F (T209:43 - T210:04; T210:21 - 46). The Court is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the offender did thrust the knife forward in the way Nikita Hanson described at a time only hours after the events, when she appeared to be making an effort to be truthful, in stark contrast to when giving evidence before the jury.
24. A statement from Mark Russell was read to the jury but I do not accept any part of his account of events as reliable. Mr Russell is a relative of the offender's and he cannot be regarded as independent of her. He was involved in the events earlier in the evening and is likely to have had his own interests in mind when he made his statement on 6 March 2020, prioritising those over the truth. Finally, his account of the stabbing is at odds in significant regards with both the account of Nikita Hanson and that of the offender. His claim to have run to Nikita Hanson's house after Mr Adams was stabbed to ask her to call an ambulance is contradicted by the limited independent eye-witness testimony. As that evidence suggests, it is probable that he simply fled, again prioritising his own interests, in this instance over the need of immediate help of a man he said was his friend. It is noted that Mr Russell's presence could not be secured as a witness at trial.
25. The motivation for the offender's act in stabbing Mr Adams, which was the direct and almost immediate cause of Mr Adams' death, was the subject of dispute at trial, and I will return to it shortly.
26. After the offender stabbed Mr Adams, she returned to Ms Hanson's house. Mark Russell, who had been standing nearby when this act occurred, ran off. Neither he nor the offender did anything to assist Mr Adams, who staggered along Payton Street and out onto nearby Watt Street. He collapsed in Watt Street, tragically dying there before any aid could come to him. In that way a young life was lost to his family and his community.
27. It is possible that the offender, running into Ms Hanson's house, made some comment about what she had done, although the evidence on that, coming as it does only from Nikita Hanson, an unreliable witness, cannot be accepted as proved to the criminal standard. It was perfectly obvious at trial that, prior to giving her evidence before the jury, Ms Hanson had given some thought about how she might avoid giving an account of the words she had attributed to the offender in an earlier statement, being intent on damaging the offender's case as little as was possible. Despite being permitted to refresh her memory in evidence pursuant to s 32 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW), and despite being cross-examined by the Crown as an unfavourable witness pursuant to s 38 of the same Act, Ms Hanson did not acknowledge the truth of her statement made on 10 March 2020 on this subject. The evidence concerning a comment made by the offender as she ran in the door of 3 Payton Street is too unreliable to accept it, and I put it aside.
28. Like the offender and Mark Russell, Nikita Hanson did nothing to assist Mr Adams in a timely way. She took the time to speak to the offender and arrange for a taxi to collect her from a nearby street, thus aiding her in her escape, before picking up her mobile telephone and telephoning for an ambulance, at 5:24:56am. Even then, she did nothing to convey the urgency of the situation to the Operator, simply stating that "a gentleman" seemed to be "bleeding out of the stomach or something" (Ex. G). She told the Operator very little that could have assisted in ensuring that a properly informed ambulance crew was quickly dispatched to Mr Adams' location.
29. Having left Ms Hanson's house following the stabbing the offender made her way to a nearby street where she got into the taxi arranged for her by Nikita Hanson. The driver, Mr Newman, drove the offender to Brown Street, Raymond Terrace, where the offender left the taxi without paying for her fare and ran off. Mr Newman thought that the offender was intoxicated; this was probably from the drugs it is reasonable to infer she and Nikita Hanson had obtained the previous night.
30. After leaving the taxi the offender made her way to the highway and walked along the highway before moving off into bushland. After having walked for some distance, she disposed of the knife used to kill Mr Adams by throwing it into bushland near a creek. She disposed of her jacket, likely stained with blood, in the same way. Neither object was ever found, despite an extensive police search. The offender contacted her mother who drove from Taree to collect her. The offender then travelled with her mother to Laurieton, near Port Macquarie, where she checked into a motel under her mother's name, staying there for two nights until she was arrested shortly after midnight on 2 March 2020.
31. Upon her arrest, the offender was interviewed by police. She gave an account of arguments between Nikita Hanson and Mr Adams when the three were together at Payton Street and, as earlier noted, the Court accepts that there was disharmony between them. The offender told police that, subsequently, Mr Adams threatened Ms Hanson, but the only objective and reliable record on that subject is found in Ex. D. It is notable that, insofar as Nikita Hanson may have told the offender that Mr Adams had threatened her, the offender said to interviewing detectives that "We didn't really think much of it", as Mr Adams was not a fighter.
32. Ms Ridgeway's account to police that Mr Adams "kept coming back" is contrary to the reliable evidence, which establishes that he went to Payton Street once after his ejection from the premises and before 5:20am on 29 February 2020; there is no credible foundation for the offender's account of Mr Adams having caused a "ruckus" on attending there every half hour (Ex. K, Q&A57).
33. When he did return to Payton Street on the second occasion after his eviction it is clear from Mr Adams' final text messages that he was angry, after many hours of provocation from Nikita Hanson, and ready for a confrontation of some sort. However, he was alone and unarmed and could not have posed much of a threat to three adults with the protection of a house about them.
34. In her interview, the offender told the police that, when Mr Adams arrived, she had stood on the veranda for a time watching him, and he had called her a "slut". Since she voluntarily left the security of the house and was, as she said to police, willing to descend the veranda stairs to "meet him half way" and to tell him to "fuck off" (Ex. K, Q&A64), it is reasonable to conclude that Ms Ridgeway was not frightened of Mr Adams, at least at that point.
35. The offender claimed in her interview that Mr Adams took hold of her jacket (at Q&A64 of Ex. K); it is impossible to say whether that is true or might possibly be true. Whatever happened, the offender stabbed Mr Adams shortly thereafter. She claims to have no memory of the incident, having "blacked out", becoming aware shortly afterwards that "old mate" was "walking and holding his chest" (Ex. K; Q&A65), an injury she told police she "assumed" she had inflicted.
36. The offender referred to Mr Adams immediately prior to the stabbing having his phone in one hand - improbably, the hand she said he grabbed her with - and something shiny in the other. He was unarmed and it is very unlikely that he had anything in his hand. Ex. 1 was tendered to demonstrate that Mr Adams may have had his watch in his hand but, since he came to Payton Street knowing there would likely be a dispute with Ms Hanson, and he could have had no need to check the time, as it would have been displayed on his mobile phone, there could have been no reason for him to have been holding his watch. The watch was later found underneath Mr Adams' body; it may have fallen from a pocket as he himself fell to the roadway.
37. It is notable that the offender did not say anything to anyone about Mr Adams having a "shiny thing" or a knife in his hand prior to giving her account to police on 2 March 2020. To Hayley Ridgeway in a conversation at about 7:47am on 29 February 2020 the offender said only, "I didn't mean to, he ran at me first" (T162:25). On 1 March 2020, she told James Carmody, "Sorry I fucked up" (T179:31). Ordinary experience would suggest that, had the offender genuinely believed that Mr Adams had been holding a knife or possibly holding a knife, she would have mentioned that, at least to Hayley Ridgeway.
38. The offender's assertion to the effect that she believed Mr Adams may have had a knife is a self-serving one made days after the event in circumstances where there is no credible evidence to support it. I do not accept it on balance.
39. The offender did not give evidence and has not provided an account of how she came to stab Mr Adams; she described "blacking out". It is difficult to know what the Court is to make of this claim in circumstances where there is no suggestion that the offender acted without volition. She said that she went into what she described as "survival mode", an experience familiar to her because of her (then) very recent experiences of domestic violence at the hands of a former partner, and that may be a more credible assertion than is her claim to have "blacked out". It is reasonably possible that the offender, traumatised by the violence to which she had been subjected by her previous boyfriends, reacted in an extreme way to the confrontation with Mr Adams, perceiving there to be danger that was not objectively there. On balance, the Court accepts that this is what occurred.
40. That is, the Court concludes that, in leaving the safety of the house when armed with a knife, the offender intended to confront Mr Adams, and to ensure that he left the area. She was neither too fearful nor too intimidated at that point to take that action, and I am satisfied that she intended to display the knife to Mr Adams to encourage him to leave, motivated by a desire to assist Nikita Hanson. At some point however, perhaps when Mr Adams moved forwards or took hold of her jacket, if he did, her own traumatised background caused her to perceive a threat that was not real and she responded spontaneously if unnecessarily by deliberately stabbing Mr Adams in a short forward and upward thrusting movement, without any particular intent other than her own defence. That unlawful and plainly highly dangerous act was the direct cause of his death. Having fatally wounded Mr Adams, she fled, doing nothing to try to assist him.
41. It is not irrelevant that she did not check on Mr Adams' condition or telephone an ambulance, even though she had a mobile telephone and could have done so easily. It is accepted, however, that the offender's flight occurred against a background of panic in a young and emotionally distraught woman.
42. Ms Ridgeway's crime is a serious one, involving as it does an assertive act employing a lethal weapon against an unarmed man who was outnumbered, and who posed little or no real threat to the offender or her companions.