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AAP
AAP
National
Margaret Scheikowski

Daughter told dad 'shut up' before killing

Maddison Hickson (centre) has pleaded not guilty to murdering her father, Michael Carroll, in 2021. (Darren Pateman/AAP PHOTOS) (AAP)

A woman accused of murdering her father told him to shut up and show some respect before he walked towards her aggressively, a jury has been told.

The woman's close friend, Jasmine Speering, said she heard a splashing noise before turning back to see blood everywhere.

She didn't know where it was coming from, but she saw her friend's father standing bent over slightly, holding his chest with both hands.

Ms Speering was giving evidence in the Newcastle Supreme Court trial of Maddison Hickson and Taylah McDonald.

Hickson, 23, has pleaded not guilty to murdering her father, Michael Carroll, 51, at a house in Tenambit, near Maitland, on January 16, 2021.

Her barrister says she stabbed him in self-defence, telling the jury Mr Carroll was a convicted criminal with a tendency for violence.

McDonald has pleaded not guilty to misleading police about the knife used in the stabbing and being an accessory after the fact to murder.

She is accused of putting the knife in a dishwasher and through a wash cycle, but she denies ever touching it.

Ms Speering said she was a close friend of Hickson for many years and had been staying with McDonald at the Tenambit house.

After a dinner of fish and chips, she was scraping plates in the kitchen when she heard Mr Carroll "beginning to burr up" in the lounge room.

He came across as intimidating and she could hear him bickering with his daughter.

"I know he was picking on her. I can't recall the exact words, I may have heard 'dog'," Ms Speering said.

She heard her friend say: "Shut the f*** up, this is not your house, have some respect."

Ms Speering said she saw Hickson standing near the TV when her father got up and walked towards her quickly and aggressively.

"It looked like he had grabbed her and put his arms around her. I couldn't tell if she was trying to get away from him," she said.

"I was going to try and break it up, but I got a bit too scared."

Ms Speering said she was behind Mr Carroll and he had his back to her, which meant she couldn't properly see her friend.

She went to leave but turned around when she heard the noise and saw blood on the floor.

Ms Speering said she remembered the silence afterwards and she was left in shock, not knowing where the blood was coming from.

She agreed she was recorded telling a triple-zero operator there had been "a bit of a domestic" and the male had got blood everywhere.

She denied washing the knife in the dishwasher.

Hickson's grandmother, Shirley Salter, also denied putting the knife in the dishwasher after she was called to the house.

She said she had a conversation with McDonald outside the residence as Mr Carroll lay bleeding on the ground.

"She told me she picked the knife up and put it in the dishwasher and cleaned it," she said.

"I said 'you have tampered with evidence'."

Ms Salter agreed that earlier this month she had told two lawyers that the knife-washing admission was made by either McDonald or Ms Speering.

She said she made the comment because she was "stressed out" and reiterated in court it was McDonald who made the comment.

She told the jury Mr Carroll had been cruel to her daughter, Hickson's mother, and had bashed her.

Hickson had been partly living with her grandmother at the time of the stabbing and her father tried to visit her a few times.

"He did call her a dog once when she was not at my house when he came looking for her," Ms Salter said.

The trial continues before Justice Ian Harrison

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