The daughter of a northern Tasmanian man accused of murdering his ex-partner’s new boyfriend has told a Supreme Court jury he threatened to “kill him” in the weeks leading up to the incident.
WARNING: This story contains details of an alleged murder and family violence.
Kerry Lee Whiting has pleaded not guilty to allegedly murdering Adrian Paul Mayne and allegedly attempting to kill Natalie Joyce Harris on the night of November 25, 2021, in their Ravenswood home.
Mr Whiting appeared in the Launceston Supreme Court before Chief Justice Tamara Jago on Tuesday for the fourth day of the trial.
The jury heard evidence from the son of Ms Harris and Mr Whiting. The witness was 16 at the time of the incident and at home with his younger sister.
During a police interview that was played to the jury, the teenager said he had been woken by fighting and yelling between Mr Mayne, Ms Harris and a third person.
He said he saw a person stab his mother in the neck numerous times with a knife but did not see them stab Mr Mayne.
It was while the teenager tried to apprehend the assailant that he “looked me dead in the face and I saw that it was my father.”
“[There was] blood pouring everywhere, and before [mum] collapsed on the ground, she said ‘it’s your dad’,” he recounted to police.
“She was on her side, trying to crawl away. He was kneeling beside her, just stabbing; I’d never seen anything that gory before, it was quite scary.”
The jury also heard the triple-0 call made on the night of the incident.
During the call, the teenager told the operator his stepfather was unconscious on the floor and covered in blood. He was then instructed to perform CPR.
The teenager told police his father could be “violent” and “aggressive at times”.
The teenager told the court that prior to the incident, he had received a call from his father asking him about Ms Harris’s new relationship.
“He’d threatened he was going to do something, but never said what,” he said.
“I was scared, I was shaking before I went to work that day”.
The teenage daughter of Ms Harris and Mr Whiting told the court that in the weeks leading up to the incident, her father became more threatening when he learned Ms Harris had a new partner.
“He was so mad he said he was going to hurt Adrian,” she said. “He said he was going to kill him.”
In Natalie Harris’s pre-recorded evidence, she said her relationship with Mr Whiting lasted around two decades, before ending in July 2021.
Following the couple’s split, Ms Harris told the court she had become romantically involved with Adrian Mayne, who she met over Facebook.
“It seemed like [the relationship] ended on OK terms,” she said.
Ms Harris described her relationship with Mr Whiting as “abusive and violent”, and that he would “yell and scream if things didn’t go his way”.
“Kerry told me if I cheated on him, he’d make sure that he’d get even with me and that person.”
Ms Harris told the court that although Mr Whiting seemed fine when she and the children moved out of their shared house, this later changed.
“He started coming all the time and staying until the kids were asleep and telling me why I needed to go back,” she said.
“I told him not to contact me or I’d call the police; he told me if I called the police he’d put me down.”
The trial is continuing.
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