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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
Blake Foden

Alleged murder attempt victim wrestles away weapon, takes it to police

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

The victim of an alleged murder attempt wrestled away his assailant's scissors and delivered them to a nearby police station while bleeding from his wounds, a jury has been told.

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

He is accused of wounding a man with intent to murder, and an alternative charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Tompkins is further charged with detaining a woman with intent to obtain a psychological advantage.

In her opening address to the jury on Tuesday, a Crown prosecutor said all charges stemmed from a May 2022 incident at the apartment block where both men lived in Queanbeyan.

She said Tompkins and the other man, who was 40 at the time, had met the previous month and would sometimes take drugs and socialise together.

On the day in question, the prosecutor said Tompkins attended the other man's Lowe Street unit.

Tompkins started yelling at the other man and calling him a "rapist dog", according to the prosecutor, who told the jury the alleged victim's attempts to calm him down achieved little.

She said Tompkins began punching the alleged victim and telling him: "I'm going to murder you. I'm killing you tonight."

According to the Crown, the alleged victim eventually felt a sharp pain to the back of his head.

The prosecutor said it was her case that this was the result of Tompkins, who continued saying things like "you're dead" and "I'm going to kill you", striking the other man's head with a pair of scissors.

Tompkins allegedly "swung" these scissors repeatedly at the other man as the incident continued to unfold, stabbing him in the upper arm and his neck or throat area.

The prosecutor said the alleged victim eventually punched Tompkins and wrestled away the scissors before walking down the road, leaving a trail of blood in his wake, to Queanbeyan Police Station.

The man took the scissors with him, the jury heard, and placed them on the counter once he arrived.

Police took the alleged victim to hospital and, in the early hours of the next morning, arrested Tompkins.

The accused man had a small lump and a cut on his forehead, as well as the alleged victim's blood on what he was wearing, the Crown told the jury.

Before leaving the apartment, he had allegedly detained a woman who was present at the time in question.

Defence barrister Jason Moffett did not give an opening address.

The jury began on Tuesday afternoon to hear evidence from the alleged victim.

He said Tompkins had accused him, on the day in question, of raping a homeless woman.

The man described Tompkins "jabbing" him with what he called "paper-cutting scissors".

He said he did not initially feel much pain, probably because of the adrenaline running through him.

"It wasn't sort of painful," the alleged victim told the jury.

"It was more just sort of scary with the blood and scissors and that."

The man spoke of taking the scissors from Tompkins while there was "a slow wrestling thing going on".

When he arrived at the police station, a number of officers came to his aid.

"I said, 'I just got stabbed', and I put the scissors on the bench," the alleged victim told the jury.

He said police rushed him to hospital in a "paddy wagon", with one officer joining him in the back for the journey.

The alleged victim is set to continue his evidence when the trial, before Judge Peter Whitford SC, resumes on Wednesday.

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