A MAN has told a jury how he was stabbed in the back and robbed of his prescription medication during a robbery in Tamworth more than two years ago.
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Stephen Hanshaw took the stand in Tamworth District Court on Tuesday detailing what happened when several men came to his house on the night of July 20, 2015.
Mr Hanshaw said Tane Chatfield, who is now deceased, stabbed him in the back after he ran out of the house about midnight.
He told the jury Chatfield held a knife to the left side of his throat before he threw his wallet containing close to $500 cash and the fentanyl patches to his son who ran out of the unit and was chased.
Aaron Leigh Collins is standing trial for robbery in company causing wounding and assault with intent to rob in company. The Crown alleges Collins was part of a joint criminal enterprise that went to the Petra Ave unit and robbed Mr Hanshaw and his son of fentanyl patches and money and attacked the pair.
Mr Hanshaw said his son was attacked outside. He claimed Collins “was giving [his son] uppercuts” before he took the wallet, containing the patches and cash, and tried to run back to the house and “fell flat on my face” and was stabbed.
“It wasn’t ferociously,” he said of the alleged stabbing by Chatfield. He said the knife “was a big one”, it “was a good sized knife, it wasn’t one that you would keep in the kitchen”.
[It] was a good sized knife, it wasn’t one that you would keep in the kitchen.
- Stephen Hanshaw
“I watched him stabbed me with it,” he told the jury. “I just watched him, it’s like he let the knife do its work.”
Mr Hanshaw said he yelled out the “bastard just stabbed me”. Mr Hanshaw said Collins did not stab him, and he last saw Collins “when he was bashing my son”.
I just watched him, it’s like he let the knife do its work.
- Stephen Hanshaw
Defence barrister John Carty said his client went to the house on his own to buy drugs, and had nothing to do with the robbery that unfolded at the time.
On the night, Mr Hanshaw said he got out of bed in his underwear when Collins, who he had known for a long time, came to visit shortly before midnight.
He said Collins asked him for money and he handed over $100, and was with Chatfield at the time and another unknown person.
Under a heated cross-examination in court, Mr Hanshaw said he “can’t remember” what he had told police on the night of the stabbing, and in court said he didn’t want to answer several questions because he wasn’t 100 per cent sure.
Mr Hanshaw also told the jury the fentanyl patches were “like morphine” and used for “excessive pain, extreme pain” after he injured his back in a chute shearing sheep a number of years ago.
He said on the morning of July 20, he went to Southgate to fill his prescription, and noticed a “mob” were “watching me” after he got to the carpark.
The trial continues.