A court artist's impression of Jeffrey.
THE defence counsel of a man charged with a serious assault in Ballarat North last year has accused the key witness of protecting her son, who they claim actually committed the assault.
The accusation was made in the trial of Robert Wayne Jeffrey, 51, who stands charged with assaulting Robert Linane on March 6 last year.
The defence yesterday claimed Mr Linane’s partner Leanne Lawson had named Jeffrey as the perpetrator to protect her son Dylan – who they said inflicted the serious injuries on Mr Linane.
“You’re making up the whole scenario,” Jeffrey’s lawyer Michael Pena-Rees said.
“It was an easy thing for you to do.”
But a tearful Ms Lawson disputed the allegations.
“I have no reason to make stuff up when I have a person at home who is sick,” she said about Mr Linane.
“It was not my son and I’ve got no reason to lie.
“I would not protect him from such a horrendous thing that someone did to someone.”
Ms Lawson’s former neighbour Maureen Eddy also gave evidence, telling of the yelling and screaming she heard during the early hours of the day of the assault.
She said a group of at least 10 people twice gathered out of the front of Mr Linane and Ms Lawson’s home that morning.
Ms Eddy told the jury she was woken by an “awful commotion”, and that she also heard glass breaking and saw a person carrying what looked like a cricket bat.
The doctor who examined Mr Linane two days after the assault told the court how a piece of skull had to be removed from Mr Linane’s head to allow for swelling to his brain.
She said he suffered multiple fractures to his skull and a build-up of blood behind his eyeball, among other injuries.
In her evidence on Tuesday, Ms Lawson told the jury that Mr Linane had been at the back of their Walker Street home on March 6 last year when Jeffrey and three others allegedly walked in.
She said the intruders went to find Mr Linane while she ran to her neighbour’s while calling triple-zero.
She said she could hear screaming and banging before Jeffrey and the others left the house.
When she went to check on her partner, she said he was lying over the back door barely breathing and with one eye hanging out of his head.
Jeffrey has pleaded not guilty to charges of intentionally causing serious injury, aggravated burglary, criminal damage and theft.
The trial before Judge Tony Howard continues.