Amid the trial of a woman for the stabbing death of a publican in the UK, and multiple instances of high-profile knife violence in Sydney, questions around armed assault and extremism are as relevant as ever in Australia.
Maidstone Crown Court is hearing the case of Matthew Bryant being allegedly stabbed and killed outside his pub, the Hare and Hounds, by his former sister-in-law Stephanie Langley, on 11 September 2023.
Formerly related by marriage, Bryant had reportedly not had contact with Langley for 21 years, until May last year, when she turned up at his pub and become angry before being made to leave.
In September her son, who says his mother accused her former brother-in-law of rape, told her he was going to Bryant’s pub, to which she responded “I’ll see you there … crazy mum, remember”.
CCTV captured her arriving at the pub and being served a drink by Bryant, making threats and again being asked to leave. She drove to a nearby train station, parked her car, leaving the hazard lights on, and walked back to the pub, arriving just after 6pm as Bryant was outside on the phone to police.
The court heard the conversation, with him relaying to the operator that she told him “I’m going to have you killed” – three times. “How can you respond to that?” he asked.
Langley approached him and Bryant is heard saying “Would you like to speak to her?” just before the phone was then knocked out of his hand. The pair move out of camera, and according to a witness she stabbed him twice in the back and “with great force” in the chest.
Twenty-four seconds later Bryant was heard telling the operator he had just been stabbed, as his wife and bystanders rushed to his aid.
Paramedics rushed to the scene and attempted to save the publican, but he was declared dead at the scene shortly before 7pm. Body cameras by emergency workers filmed Langley saying “I took a knife and I killed him. I don’t care … I hate him so much … I hope he dies”.
Appearing before a jury of six men and six women the court heard Langley had been going through personal and financial difficulties and was under a great deal of stress.
She admitted to a charge of possessing a knife, but denied accusations of murder or manslaughter.
The prosecution suggested the victim had become the focal point for the defendant’s unhappiness and anger, stressing she is “guilty of murder”. The trial continues.
This tragic case of the woman’s distress, and her anger at a former family member, whether justified or not, demonstrates how easily a common household implement can be used in violence.
On an unassuming Monday the 15th of April, a 16-year-old-boy was filmed in a live stream around 7pm at a service in Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church, in Wakeley, in Sydney’s west. He approached Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and appeared to stab him in the head, then stab another priest.
Emmanuel has previously criticised Islam and the prophet Muhammad in his sermons, and after a scuffle between worshippers and the attacker the man could be heard saying (in Arabic) that it was prompted by the bishop’s words. “If he hadn’t spoken about my Prophet, I wouldn’t have come here.”
Police were summoned and the young man was arrested – found to have had a finger severed in the incident, thought to have been done by himself.
An angry crowd swelled on the street outside, growing to a reported 2k people. Police and emergency workers came under attack, 30 people were injured, and six paramedics were trapped in the church for over three hours.
All three men wounded in the attack later underwent surgery, and local Muslim, Assyrian and Melkite community leaders gathered for an emergency meeting, ratifying a statement condemning the violence.
The teenager had previously been caught in possession of a knife at school, in 2020, and of a flick knife at a train station last November, over which he was placed on a good behaviour bond. He travelled some distance, with the knife, to go to the church.
In light of evidence, authorities declared the attack was religiously motivated and a ‘terrorist incident’, which gives police extra powers to investigate, under NSW laws.
This headline incident came just a day after Australians were shocked to hear of a mass killing event in a Bondi shopping centre, as 40-year-old Joel Cauchi stabbed six people to death and injured more than a dozen more, using a 30-centimetre commercial knife, before he was shot and killed by police.
The homeless assailant had a history of mental illness and reportedly suffered from schizophrenia.
In the attack, he targeted women and avoided men, the only man killed being the mall’s unarmed security guard, Faraz Tahir. The victims were Yixuan Cheng (27), Jade Young (47), Dawn Singleton (25), Pikria Darchia (55), Ashlee Good (38) and Tahir (30).
And most of the 12 surviving victims were also women, including Ms Good’s nine-month-old daughter.
Cauchi’s distraught 76-year-old father told reporters he blames his son’s actions on his not having a girlfriend, having “no social skills” and being “frustrated out of his brain”.
The confluence of these facts saw an indigent man commit the worst act of mass killing in Australia since the infamous Port Arthur massacre, which brought about world-leading gun control laws.
Potentially harder to understand is the case of 33-year-old Dean Nickerson, who faced court over an incident in the gaming room at Peden’s Hotel in December.
The court heard the defendant attacked the victim, striking him several times and stabbing him in the right side of his chest and left forearm, because, he says, he had perceived a threat from the victim.
CCTV cameras showed the victim attempted to defend himself using a stool. Nickerson threw a glass at him and left, on an unregistered motorcycle.
The injured man was taken to Cessnock Hospital and received treatment for his non-fatal wounds.
Appearing before a magistrate’s court, Nickerson was handed the maximum sentence available to the court, sentenced to two years and two months for a charge of reckless wounding and for driving while disqualified, with a 25 per cent discount for pleading guilty at first opportunity and 16-month non-parole period. Given time already spent in custody he will be eligible for parole in April 2024.
In 2023 the NSW government doubled penalties for specific knife offences. The maximum penalty for possessing a knife in a public place (or school) was raised to four years in prison, a $4,400 fine, or both.
Every week, compiling pub news from around the world, I see regular examples of stabbings in pubs in the UK, typically by one patron angry at another.
While Australia is comparatively free from the crazed gun violence that plagues the USA, and the daily horror of constant mass shooting events, the proclivity of blade weapons could make them a convenient option for people with poor intentions or mental stability, and without suitable discouragement there is little to stop this dubious kind of notoriety being an incentive to copycats.