What Was The Ian Attack Of A Screwdrver

LAWS 380

Assignment 1: Evidence Analysis

Question One Theory of the Case

On 4 May 2017 Ian Palmer was high on synthetic cannabis. He burgles a nearby house, returns home for a few hours and then goes to Emano street to continue his burglary spree. He selects 45B Emano Street and enters through the back door. He spots a man, James Linkhorn, in the kitchen, panics about getting caught, and in his drug-fuelled volatility he decides to attack the man to with the screwdriver he used to break in. During the attack, he hears a car pull up and flees out the back door without stealing anything, his shoe falling off in his hurry, and runs home. His use of the drugs causes him to forget the incident.

Issues

The key issues in dispute are:

Was Ian the

The defence will raise the inconsistencies created by Jame’s statement that the attacker spoke of “Phil” yet there is no evidence that there was any connection between Philip and Ian. There is no evidence that directly connects Ian to the attack itself nor any connection of his screwdriver to the attack weapon.

Did Ian intend to cause grievous bodily harm?

The prosecution theory of a burglary-gone-wrong and thus intent formulating out of surprise and panic is very circumstantial, placing heavy reliance on impaired judgement caused by synthetic cannabis. The defence would dispute this intent as uncharacteristic of Ian who has no history of violence offences, nor any reason to violently panic upon seeing a 63 year old, sick

Ian admits to using synthetic cannabis for “ages” until his arrest, and also attributes his lack of memory and alibi for the Tipahi robbery to his use of synthetic cannabis “a lot around that time”.

Ian’s admission to use of a screwdriver, placing Ian in possession of a weapon capable inflicting James’ wound.

Ian admits that he might remember the attack, did not use a knife but rather a flathead screwdriver and he had used a screwdriver in another Toitoi burglary (presumably the Tipahi burglary). Further, possession is consistent with the facts of that burglary.

The evidence in Detective Ta’ala’s and Dr Foster’s formal statements which correlate to prove James was attacked with a weapon on May 4.

Detective Ta’ala describes a police call, blood trail and description of injuries consistent with an attack and largely consistent with Dr Foster’s description of James’ injury as “3cm vertical ragged laceration”, an injury that could be caused by a screwdriver-like weapon.

Question Two

I would not seek to adduce the material in Philip’s formal