A teenager whose young brothers were stabbed by their mother told police that he had previously heard her “threaten to hurt” the boys, a jury has heard.
In a video-taped interview from four days after the incident, which left a toddler dead and his younger brother badly injured, the 15-year-old told detectives that during one of the regular arguments between his mother and her partner, “I think she threatened to harm them that night”.
“He was threatening to call the police but she was threatening to do something,” he told the officer. When asked if “mum had threatened to harm the kids”, he replied “yeah”.
“Is that right, that you felt mum was threatening to harm the little ones?” the officer asked. The teenager nodded his head in agreement.
Antirm Crown Court heard the teenager say he could not remember specifically what was allegedly threatened, but that “I think their dad was wanting to phone the police, but mum said if he phoned the police she will do something”.
The boy told investigators during the almost two hour interview that he had witnessed his mother physically assault his biological father and the father of the little boys repeatedly and that she had made so many threats of suicide that he “can’t count” them.
“Have you ever been afraid of mum,” the officer asked.
“No, maybe afraid for someone else but not me, no,” he replied.
“Who?” the officer asked.
“My brothers and their dad and my dad,” he stated.
‘No threat’
The father of the deceased and injured boys previously told the jury that while he had been physically assaulted, he had never seen the accused “hurt or harm any of the children”. He said there had been “no threat that the children would ever be hurt”.
The accused woman (41), who cannot be named to protect the identity of her four children, is charged with murdering her son who was almost three and attempting to murder of his 11-month-old brother on March 2nd, 2020.
A jury has already heard harrowing evidence that the “highly qualified nurse” put multiple morphine pain relief patches on the children before stabbing them numerous times in the bedroom of their rural family home. She left notes saying that she did not want them to “experience pain” and that “I’m taking my kids with me because I can’t leave them with their dad”.
The boys sustained multiple stab wounds, with the older boy dying as a result of a neck wound which severed an artery and a vein. His younger brother came close to having the same fate but survived after having emergency surgery.
It is the prosecution’s case that the woman, who admits stabbing the children, either intended to kill them or at least intended to cause her infant sons serious harm. The defence argues that, she was suffering from an abnormality of mind at the time which substantially impaired her thinking, decision-making and perception of consequences.
The trial continues.