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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
Blake Foden

Alleged murder attempt victim denies attacking 'dope-chopping' accused

The scissors on the Queanbeyan Police Station counter after the alleged murder attempt. Picture supplied

The alleged victim of a murder attempt has denied a "dope-chopping" neighbour stabbed him with scissors in self-defence, rejecting claims he was the real aggressor when the pair traded blows.

Wayne Anthony Tompkins, 43, is on trial in the Queanbeyan District Court, having pleaded not guilty to three charges.

He denies wounding the alleged victim with intent to murder, as well as an alternative charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Tompkins also denies detaining a woman, who was present at the time in question, without her consent.

When the trial began on Tuesday, the alleged victim told the jury Tompkins, who lived opposite his unit in Lowe Street, had come into his home in May 2022 and yelled abuse at him.

He claimed Tompkins punched him before stabbing him with a pair of scissors, which he eventually wrestled from his alleged assailant.

The jury heard the alleged victim had subsequently walked to the nearby Queanbeyan Police Station and placed the scissors on the counter while bleeding from wounds to the head, neck and upper arm.

During cross-examination on Wednesday, defence barrister Jason Moffett challenged the alleged victim about whether he had in fact been the aggressor on the day in question.

Mr Moffett suggested to the alleged victim that he had been holding a screaming woman by the throat when Tompkins entered his unit.

The barrister said Tompkins had asked what the man was doing and if he wanted "a couple of cones".

Mr Moffett suggested Tompkins then began to "chop up dope" for the alleged victim to smoke, in the hope it would calm the man down.

Defence counsel put it to the alleged victim that, while this was happening, he suddenly attacked Tompkins without warning.

This, Mr Moffett suggested, had prompted Tompkins to defend himself while still holding the scissors he had been using to prepare the drugs.

The alleged victim denied this was what had happened, insisting Tompkins had been the aggressor.

He agreed with the proposition that the version put to him by Mr Moffett was simply a figment of the barrister's imagination.

"That's for sure," the man said.

The trial of Tompkins, before the jury and Judge Peter Whitford SC, continues.

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