A 29-year-old woman accused of mopping up a man’s blood with a towel to conceal a serious assault at her North Ballarat home has been committed to stand trial.
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But Shannon Lee Jeffrey claims she did not know an alleged assault was going to take place and she was simply cleaning the blood in her bedroom.
The mother-of-two fronted the Ballarat Magistrates Court on Wednesday charged with intentionally causing serious injury and concealing a crime after the fact, to which she pleaded not guilty.
Jeffrey was friends with the victim when she allegedly invited him to her home on December 21, 2015, because she wanted to talk to him.
From a remote witness facility, the victim told the committal hearing he arrived at the house and went into Jeffrey’s bedroom where four men were standing around her bed.
He believed he heard Jeffrey close the door behind him before pushing him into co-accused, Heath Shepherd.
The victim said he was punched, kicked, choked with his motorcycle helmet and stabbed 15 times in the bedroom.
He said Jeffrey was mopping up his blood beside him while he was still being choked, but she did give him a towel.
“In four to five minutes it was all over and I was out the door dead,” the victim said.
“I thought I had a black eye but it was actually hanging out of my head.”
The victim said he spent four days at the Royal Melbourne Hospital before he discharged himself against medical advice on Christmas Day in 2015.
The court was told the victim, who had been kicked out of the Vikings Motorcycle Club before the alleged assault, had been making inquiries about finding a missing ring.
He said Jeffrey may have been involved with the missing ring but he had been friends with her until the alleged assault and visited her at her home at times.
He said he was lured into a trap when she allegedly invited him to her house on the day of the incident.
The court was told a search warrant was not executed at the crime scene until February 2016.
Defence barrister Erin Ramsay said Jeffrey had moved out of the house at the time of the search warrant.
She suggested police could not say if Jeffrey mopped up the blood to simply clean her bedroom or whether she was covering up the assault. Detective Senior Constable McDonald agreed she could not determine this.
Ms Ramsay said the victim had changed his story a number of times.
She said the victim phoned a triple-zero operator after the alleged assault, telling the operator he was riding his motorcycle, unknown people stopped him and he was assaulted.
In making submissions, Ms Ramsay said there was insufficient evidence for her client to stand trial before a jury.
“The Crown have to prove that a serious assault was going to be committed and (Jeffrey) asked (the victim) to come around to facilitate that happening,” Ms Ramsay said.
“She has invited (the victim) around before Mr Shepherd assaulted him without her knowing. Why would you take a person into your bedroom knowing blood was going to go everywhere?”
Shepherd died two weeks ago and his charges were withdrawn. The other men alleged to have been in the bedroom have not been charged.
Magistrate Gregory Robinson said there was sufficient evidence for Jeffrey to stand trial at the County Court at Ballarat. A directions hearing will be held on March 1 for Jeffrey, who is in custody on other matters.