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Newcastle Herald
Newcastle Herald
National
Sam Rigney

'I didn't do it': Kyna McAuley denies long list of allegations in Mount Hutton torture trial

Kyna McAuley is on trial accused of detaining and assaulting a woman at Mount Hutton in May, 2021.

THE list of allegations was long, and Kyna McAuley - accused of detaining and torturing a woman at Mount Hutton in 2021 - denied every single one.

On the stand for a second day on Monday during her trial in Newcastle District Court, Ms McAuley, 42, was asked a series of questions, based on the evidence of a woman who claims she was detained for about 24 hours in the back shed of a home in Kestrel Avenue.

"At any stage did you do anything to prevent her leaving the shed," Ms McAuley's barrister, Russell Boyd, asked his client.

"No," Ms McAuley replied.

Did she hit the woman with a hammer? Tell others to hold her down? Kick her? Tell the woman she was going to take her arms off and walk towards her with a grinder? Pour hot water on her head? Wave cable ties in her face and see someone else tie her up? Pull out a bottle of methadone and threaten to inject the woman with it? Threaten to give her a lobotomy? Threaten to put her in hydrochloric acid? Threaten to pull out her teeth with pliers? Strike her in the mouth with something metal? Press a cigarette into her head and then dump her in Eleebana?

"No," Ms McAuley repeated after every question.

"Did you do any of those things at all," Mr Boyd asked.

"No," Ms McAuley replied.

"I'm positive."

Ms McAuley and Madden Paynter have pleaded not guilty to a charge relating to the abduction and the trial - now into its eighth day - is focusing on what happened inside the shed on May 5 and 6, 2021, and who was present.

Ms McAuley has also pleaded not guilty to stabbing the woman in the face with a blood-filled syringe in the months before she was detained, and denied a charge of influencing a witness relating to messages she sent a co-accused that the prosecution say were intended to get him to change his story.

The woman gave evidence on June 8 and 9, telling the jury she was repeatedly assaulted and threatened, tied up, struck in the head with what she thought was a hammer, had her teeth knocked out, burnt with a cigarette and had boiling water poured over her head during the 24 hours she was held in the shed.

The woman said she was terrified she was going to be killed and wet her pants when Mr Paynter allegedly pinned her down and held out her arm while Ms McAuley started a grinder and approached "as if she was going to cut off her arm".

The prosecution case is that the kidnapping and assault stemmed from a minor car accident that the woman had while driving around the young daughter of Ms McAuley.

Ms McAuley gave evidence that she was angry about the crash and physically fought with the woman in the back shed, striking her in the head, but then left and had no idea she was being detained for the rest of the day.

Using text messages, Facebook messages and emails, Mr Boyd took Ms McAuley through the rest of her day on May 5, 2021 - while the woman was outside in the shed - which included Ms McAuley getting one child ready for school, looking after another home sick, organising the imminent sale of their house, helping another family member with a court matter, cleaning the house, driving Mr Paynter to his grandmother's, selling an item on Facebook marketplace and having a family dinner.

During her evidence on Friday, Ms McAuley also denied stabbing the woman with a blood-filled syringe and said she confronted her after finding it in her bathroom and only threw the needle towards her.

Ms McAuley was read a series of messages she sent to a co-accused turned Crown witness, but said it was never her intention to get him to withhold evidence.

"My intention was for him to speak the truth as I believe it was," she said. "As in what he had told me it was. "Because what he told me and what he ended up doing were not the same thing."

She said she only sent the co-accused a copy of his police interview and other documents because he didn't have them and so he knew they couldn't be in contact.

When asked by Mr Boyd if there was anything else she wanted to say, Ms McAuley replied: "I didn't do it".

The trial continues.

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