LILY Ridgeway armed herself with a knife because she wanted to protect herself and her friend but had no intentions of 'hurting' Jason Adams, a supreme court jury has heard.
Ms Ridgeway has pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Adams, who died on the street in Raymond Terrace about 5.20am on February 29, 2020, from a stab wound to the chest.
In the lead up to the incident, there had been a lengthy exchange of expletive-laden text messages between Mr Adams and Nikita Hanson.
Ms Hanson wanted Mr Adams to move out of her Payton Street rental because he had been telling people they were together and he was acting like "a psycho ex-boyfriend", she said in her evidence given in the Newcastle Supreme Court in front of Justice Helen Wilson on Tuesday.
He had come to live there after the two of them (Ms Hanson and Mr Adams) were pulled over by police. Neither was licensed to drive. Mr Adams was jailed over the incident and, after being kicked out, was threatening to dob Ms Hanson in as the driver.
In an interview with police on March 2, 2020, played for the jury on Wednesday, Ms Ridgeway said she'd rung two friends to help Ms Hanson ask Mr Adams to move out and that he'd been making threats against her (Ms Hanson) via text messages for the rest of that day.
I didn't have any intentions of hurting him, unless he hurt me
Lily Ridgeway
"He was saying stuff like, "If I can't have you no one can have you," Ms Ridgeway said. "He said, 'Get your crew ready, I've got my crew ready ... I'm gonna smash the house up." Ms Hanson was scared, she said.
Ms Ridgeway said she heard Mr Adams "schizzing out" on the front on the lawn, saying, "Come on you dogs, you wanna go on with it, let's go on."
She walked out the front and stood on the steps. He was calling her a slut, she said, and came up to her. "I could see something shiny in his other hand I can't tell you if it was a knife I don't know what it was," she said.
"I knew he had a phone in his hand because he grabbed me with that hand, and I could see a shine off something in his other hand. I just went into survival mode, you know. I don't know, I blacked out when he touched me."
Ms Ridgeway confirmed that she was holding a knife, "because he shouldn't be in the f---ing house".
"I got it to protect myself. I didn't have any intentions of hurting him, unless he hurt me, to protect myself. It was just an accident.
"If it wasn't him, it was gonna be me."
The trial continues.
