A BROKE and desperate drug-addict who stabbed a man to death at Manangatang in March last year only intended to commit a quick “snatch and grab” for money and drugs, a court has been told.
Forty-two-year-old Albury man Dael John Newman was this week sentenced to 21 years’ jail with a non-parole period of 16 years for the murder of 58-year-old cancer patient David Gaskell and recklessly causing injury to his 42-year-old de facto partner during the home invasion.
The Supreme Court of Victoria heard Newman had stolen five pounds of cannabis from the same house two months earlier when he broke through a kitchen window while the premises were not occupied.
On March 30 last year, Newman, his partner and an associate drove to the Manangatang premises. The accused was wearing a hooded jumper, with the hood pulled over his head and his face masked with a T-shirt.
He was carrying a bum-bag and backpack and had a taser with him for use if needed.
The occupants were watching television when Newman climbed through the same kitchen window he had earlier broken.
Mr Gaskell went to investigate and was confronted by Newman.
Mr Gaskell began yelling at the accused to get out of the house, and an altercation ensued.
Mr Gaskell’s dogs began barking and biting at Newman’s legs when the accused tried to use his taser on the victim. However, it did not work.
The accused seized a knife from the kitchen bench and began swinging it at Mr Gaskell, stabbing him a number of times to the upper body.
Supreme Court Justice Jane Dixon said that having attacked Mr Gaskell with the knife, Newman ran from the kitchen towards the front door where he saw the man’s de facto attempting to use her phone.
Newman pushed her and tried to grab the mobile phone from her right hand and, in that process, slashed her right middle finger and left thigh.
The accused then ran from the front door through the lounge and to the kitchen again, where he stole $200 from the bench before fleeing.
A neighbour and paramedics were unable to save Mr Gaskell.
Following his arrest four days later, Newman told police he was supposed to get drugs and money from the refrigerator in a quick “snatch and grab”, but when Mr Gaskell had him by the throat and the dogs had hold of his legs he grabbed whatever he could from the benchtop and started swinging it.
The accused admitted later burning the clothes he had been wearing during the offending.
Justice Dixon said both Mr Gaskell and his de facto were entitled to feel safe in their own home and given there was a car in the driveway and the television was on, it should have been apparent that someone was home.
She said Newman entered the house prepared for the risk of confrontation, however, the stabbing of Mr Gaskell was “impulsive and reactive to a degree”.
The court was told Newman was expelled from school at the age of 14 and began living on the streets where he fell in with other young people involved in drugs and crime.
In jailing Newman to 21 years with a non-parole period of 16 years, Justice Dixon said the accused experienced extreme disadvantage as a child, including neglect, instability, exposure to drugs and alcohol, and physical and emotional abuse.
“Your deprived early life has left you with lifelong psychological and emotional impairments and limited social and occupational skills and resources,” she said.
“I also accept that your childhood exposure to extreme violence and alcohol abuse helps explain your recourse to violence when frustrated.
“Your emotionally impoverished childhood and experiences of abuse and trauma mean that your moral culpability for the offences is lower than for a person without that background.”
Judge Dixon said Newman’s prospects for rehabilitation were largely dependent on whether he can overcome his drug habit and obtain counselling to help manage a personality disorder.
