After a pleasant night of drinking and watching rugby league with his family, a man allegedly stabbed his mother's partner in the chest in self-defence after being woken up with a table leg to the face.
Luke Kevin Richard Harding is on trial for murdering Traynor Anton Walters with a kitchen knife in the early hours of July 2, 2022 at Warilla, a seaside suburb near Wollongong south of Sydney.
The 28-year-old has given evidence to a NSW Supreme Court jury that he ordered takeaway food and drank several glasses of bourbon and cola while listening to music and watching the NRL with his family the evening before.
His mother Renee Harding was there with Mr Walters, her partner of six months.
Luke Harding told the jury he fell asleep on the lounge only to be woken between 1am and 2am after being hit twice by Mr Walters on the side of the head with a leg broken off a coffee table.
This evidence was recapped by Justice Peter Garling in a Wollongong courtroom on Wednesday before he sent the jury out to deliberate.
Ms Harding previously gave evidence she had been arguing with her then-partner about a six-metre-long pet carpet python that had been released from its tank while she cleaned it.
Her son claimed Mr Walters picked him up, throwing him off the lounge and onto another coffee table before straddling him on the ground.
The 98kg man punched Harding in the face again before choking him, the jury heard.
"I couldn't breathe at all,” the accused murderer said earlier in the trial.
When defence barrister Scott Fraser asked how he was feeling, Harding responded: "That I was going to die, like I had to do something to stop this".
After being handed a kitchen knife by a family member who came in during the assault, the 28-year-old stabbed Mr Walters five times in the chest.
Under questioning from crown prosecutor Nerissa Keay, Harding denied he was angry and attacked his mother's boyfriend after being woken up.
He denied going into the kitchen to grab the knife before the stabbing.
Body worn video of police arriving at the Warilla residence showed Harding waving them inside.
“I needed to get them inside to help him and I didn't know how serious it was,” he told the court.
Jurors will need to consider whether Harding intended to kill Mr Walters or cause him grievous bodily harm.
Justice Garling told them to find the 28-year-old guilty of murder they would have to be certain beyond reasonable doubt his version of events was not true.
If the jury doesn't find Harding guilty of murder, they can find him guilty of manslaughter or acquit him entirely if they find he acted reasonably in self-defence.
"The law recognises the right of a person to act in self-defence from an attack or a threatened attack, even to the point of killing someone," Justice Garling said.
