ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — A woman who stabbed her boyfriend in the face after he caused them to be kicked out of a Bryan Adams concert at Mile One Centre last summer will return to court in May.
The 34-year-old woman was convicted in provincial court Tuesday on charges of assault, assault with a weapon and possession of a weapon dangerous to the public in connection with the attack last July, which happened at the couple's downtown home after the concert.
Judge James Walsh also found the woman guilty of assaulting a peace officer for spitting at an RNC officer who arrested her.
Both the woman and her boyfriend took the stand at her trial Tuesday, but Walsh rejected both their testimonies, saying they were attempting to minimize the altercation in an effort to regain custody of their children.
The three children were removed from the home sometime after the incident by the province's Department of Children, Seniors and Social Development.
The woman told the court she and her boyfriend had gone to the concert with her mother. Near the end of the show, she left her seat to stand with the crowd closer to the stage, and a man sitting near the front took issue with her, she said. The man took out his phone and said he was going to report her, and her boyfriend took the phone and threw it.
"That's when security got involved," she testified, telling the court she had decided to leave with her boyfriend when he was told by security personnel to get out. "I was upset. Mom said I missed a good part of the show. (Adams) sang a tribute to his father."
After walking home, saying goodbye to the babysitter and putting her youngest child to bed, she confronted her boyfriend, the woman said.
"I remember going upstairs and asking (him) why he would ruin the last 20 minutes of the concert when there was basically no need," she said. "I wanted him to leave. I told him he ruined my night, that he should have kept his hands to himself and none of it would have happened. I was pretty upset."
The woman testified she had asked the man multiple times to leave, to no avail, telling him that she would call the police to have him removed. She pushed him, she said, scratching him in the face in the process. She said the man then threw her to the floor. She then got up and punched him.
"I remember he had a beer in his hand. I noticed blood, so I figured he was cut," she testified.
As the man went outside to have a cigarette, she took a pot of macaroni salad from the fridge and threw it at him, missing him and hitting the open door instead.
The woman said that after her boyfriend threw her to the floor a second time, she grabbed a small paring knife from the dish rack on her kitchen counter.
"I decided to pick it up, I guess to instill fear because I wanted him out of the house and nothing was working," she said. "He came towards me. I literally had the knife three seconds and then he had it in his hand and threw it. I don't believe the knife touched his face at all."
The woman said her boyfriend then told her that he was going up the street to her mother's home to get a cigarette and left. She said she asked her 11-year-old to watch the other children while she followed shortly thereafter, worried her boyfriend would tell lies about what happened. She arrived at her mother's home to find police cars and an ambulance, she said, and two officers arrested her before she had a chance to speak, handcuffing her and putting her in the back of a police cruiser.
"I said I was thirsty because I had nothing to drink since the concert and I was really dehydrated and I felt like I needed to spit," she testified. "I didn't want to do it in the car so I asked (an RNC officer) nicely to open the door and he didn't want to."
At a moment when the car door was open, the woman said, she decided to spit anyway.
The woman's boyfriend was taken to hospital and treated for a small puncture wound on his cheek. He also had a number of scratches. The woman had a scratch on her forearm, which she said had happened when her boyfriend took the knife from her.
A handful of RNC officers testified during the woman's trial, telling the court the woman had been intoxicated and belligerent toward them, calling them names and kicking. One of the officers said the woman had deliberately spat at him, but missed, when he opened the door to the police vehicle, while another officer testified he had seen the woman deliberately spit at his colleague. The officers told the court the woman had told them she had been "stabbed, too."
"She was so intoxicated on that night and her behaviour was so outrageous and belligerent, that to try and reconstruct a memory after the fact to minimize what transpired is not credible." — Judge James Walsh
When questioned about inconsistencies between her testimony and a statement she gave to police the night of the altercation - in which she said she had poked the knife toward the man - the woman said she hadn't told investigators the full truth about what had happened, since she was scared her children would be taken away.
Though he told police the night of the incident that his girlfriend had stabbed him, the man testified in court that he might have stabbed himself in the cheek as he took the knife away from her. He had been intoxicated when he agreed to give police a statement under caution that it might be used later in court, he testified, because he was tired and wanted to go home to his children.
The judge rejected both testimonies and chose to accept the evidence in the man's police statement as well as certain things the woman had told investigators.
"I don't accept (the woman's) testimony. Her version of events is enhanced by motivation to get her kids back. She was so intoxicated on that night and her behaviour was so outrageous and belligerent, that to try and reconstruct a memory after the fact to minimize what transpired is not credible," Walsh said.
While the woman testified she had simply held the knife in her hand, by telling police she was "stabbed, too," she had acknowledged that her boyfriend had been stabbed, Walsh said.
"She was the aggressor from the evidence before me. She was the one that was angry after what transpired, she started the fight in the house, she's the one that pursued (the man), she was the one that decided she wanted to get him out of there and when he chose not to, she's the one that pulled the knife."
When it came to spitting at the RNC officer, Walsh said the woman was "lucky she didn't make contact."
The woman had originally been charged with aggravated assault, but Walsh convicted her on the lesser charge of common assault instead, given the minor nature of her boyfriend's injuries.
She will return to court for a sentencing hearing at the end of May.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
