STANDING in Newcastle Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon, Crown prosecutor John Stanhope produced a large knife, one of the alleged murder weapons used to kill Guy Hamilton McCulloch in Belmont South in 2018, and held it aloft so all members of the socially distanced jury could see.
A day earlier, accused murderer Justin Fuller, now 34, had told the jury he had "lost it" after a long-running family dispute culminated in a chaotic confrontation in Beach Street and essentially forgot that he was holding the two large machetes.
Mr Fuller claimed Mr McCulloch had reversed at him, he had jumped out of the way but Mr McCulloch's Nissan had collected him and he had managed to cling to the side of the car.
He said he had intended to punch Mr McCulloch, 50, his half-sister's partner, through the open car window and not stab him.
"When I lost it and swung at him, I wasn't even thinking of the knives," Mr Fuller said on Tuesday. "It is my belief I was trying to punch him in the head."
Mr Fuller has pleaded not guilty to murder, but guilty to manslaughter over the death of Mr McCulloch and has raised a partial defence of extreme provocation and a partial defence of excessive self-defence. But now, holding up the 30-centimetre blade for the jury, Mr Stanhope said the weapon pointed to just how implausible Mr Fuller's evidence was.
"I invite you in due course to come and pick the knives up," Mr Stanhope told the jury. "And to think to yourselves how heavy are they? "How much does that effect what I can do with my hand? "Would I be able to hang onto a window or any part of a vehicle with this in my hand. "I'm going to suggest to you that the answer is no. "You can't hang onto a vehicle while holding a knife and you're certainty not going to forget that you've got it in your hand."
Mr Stanhope spent much of his closing address on Wednesday picking apart the "very, very implausible account" of how Mr Fuller claims the stabbing occurred.
He pointed to the numerous witness accounts that differ from what Mr Fuller said in his evidence, took the jury through the post-mortem photographs that he said showed stab wounds nowhere near Mr McCulloch's head and disputed Mr Fuller's claims that he had "lost it" just moments before the stabbing.
"He didn't really lose it at all, he was just very, very angry," Mr Stanhope said. "This was a determined and consistent attack... someone quite clearly intending to cause either death or a really serious injury."
Mr Terracini will deliver his closing address on Thursday before the jury retires to begin deliberations.
