Sleeping brother stabbed in bed

BY BRONWYN TORRIE

A mother's world has been ripped apart after her son stabbed his younger brother while he was asleep in bed.

"I can't help but feel partly responsible. On that night [he] tried to talk to me, I didn't realise," the mother wrote in a letter to the Palmerston North District Court. "If only I could turn back the clock."

The older brother was sentenced to five years' imprisonment by Judge Gerard Lynch on Friday for wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Both brothers' names and the town where they lived were suppressed, at the request of the victim.

The night before the May stabbing the pair had been at a party together when an altercation occurred, Judge Lynch said.

The younger brother, 22, had kicked his older brother, 25, out of the flat they were sharing.

"You were upset and embarrassed by how you were dealt with," Judge Lynch said.

While at the pub the following night, the intoxicated older brother said he wanted to bash his brother and stab everyone else.

He then went home, grabbed a butchers knife, walked into the bedroom, held the knife above his head and stabbed his brother once in the stomach.

"You told him it was his own fault [or] words to the effect that you were going to jail so [you] may as well kill him," Judge Lynch said.

A struggle erupted. The victim was headbutted and punched.

The older brother called emergency services and said he didn't want his little brother to die because he loved him.

He initially told police he had gone into the bedroom with a knife because he was mending jeans and when he tried to shake his brother awake he sat up into the knife.

The younger brother was airlifted to hospital where he had surgery to remove a small section of his perforated intestine.

Nearly a dozen family members and friends flanked the visibly upset parents, sitting separately in the public gallery, as Judge Lynch explained the impact of the man's drunken attack.

"Your mother has described this offence as having torn her world apart. Your mother takes some responsibility for what occurred, I think she's being a little too hard on herself. Your brother said it was hard for him to understand ... he says he hates you for what you've done, but you are his brother and he loves you."

The victim, who was not in court, said he wanted to speak with his brother, who had been barred from making contact since the stabbing.

"I would love to hear from him so that I can ask why he did it and make sense of it all," he wrote in his victim impact statement.

"What he did was extreme."

The pre-sentence report said the brothers had a good upbringing and prior to the stabbing they had been living happily with each other.

But the court heard how the younger brother had belittled his older brother over time.

"He's brooded and brooded and brooded and lost control, " defence lawyer Jacinda Younger said.

She agreed with the Crown's starting point of seven to eight years' imprisonment but said there should be an extra discount, on top of the 33 per cent for the early guilty plea, for his "exceptional remorse" and provocation.

"The defendant's remorse was almost instant, he has snapped and that's clear."

Ms Younger admitted provocation was a "slippery slope to climb".

She compared the situation to a person suffering "battered woman's syndrome", where a woman who is in a violent relationship snaps and assaults her partner.

"Just because they are brothers does not make the domestic relationship strictly different."

Judge Lynch disagreed: "I've seriously considered the invitation to take into account the victim's culpability."

He said he didn't understand why the older brother didn't move out if the claimed continual provocation was so bad.

Judge Lynch also rejected he was "exceptionally" remorseful and said the stabbing was planned.

"I find there was a degree of premeditation ... you went to deal with him and you did."

Outside court, the men's father said the younger brother was "under the weather" and couldn't face going to court.

- © Fairfax NZ News