TWO men have been ordered to stand trial in the Supreme Court over the alleged murder of war veteran Kenneth Handford, who was found dead by a neighbour on what would have been his 90th birthday.
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Jonothan Cooper and Adam Williamson on Wednesday both entered a plea of not guilty at the conclusion of a two-day committal hearing at Ballarat Magistrates Court.
The men are accused of murdering Mr Handford at his Springbank home on September 14 last year.
On the final day of the hearing the court heard from a woman, whose name has been suppressed, who said she had a conversation with Williamson in the back seat of his car after hearing of the murder in the news.
“He said he really needed to speak with me about something and he didn’t know what to do,” the woman told the court.
When asked about what Williamson allegedly told her, she said “he told me he had stuffed up. That they were only going to rob him, he wasn’t supposed to be there.
“Johnny had stabbed him in the back,” she said.
“He heard a pop noise and Johnny say ‘I may as well finish it, it’s half way in.”
But when asked by Williamson’s lawyer whether Williamson had seen Cooper stab Mr Handford, she said no.
He also asked the woman whether she may have been affected by drugs on the day she spoke with Williamson, in which she told the court she had injected ice that morning and “would have been ice-affected during the conversation”.
The woman also told the court Williamson had allegedly asked about how DNA went from one person to the next and whether it would be okay if he could tell police he had been with her all weekend.
Challenged by Williamson’s lawyer, John Desmond, why details she gave the police informant and made in her statement on the following day were different, she told the court she was “in shock” the first time she spoke with police.
Two witnesses had previously given evidence on the first day of the hearing.
At the conclusion of the hearing, magistrate Cynthia Toose said she was satisfied there was sufficient evidence with which a jury could convict the men.
Both men will appear at the Supreme Court on June 29 for a directions hearing.
A third man, who has been charged with being an accessory to the murder, appeared separately on Wednesday.
He registered a plea of guilty to the charge and will also appear in court later this month.
