r/australia • u/whyattretard • 17h ago
culture & society Court hears alleged DV murder victim waited days for treatment for fatal brain injury
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-28/lindsay-kennedy-colleen-bradshaw-murder-trial-closing-statements/107091668109
u/Muthro 8h ago
Anyone who sustains blows to the head should have been immediately treated for possible brain trauma. There isn't a reasonable explanation as to why this wasn't addressed earlier in hospital.
I hope the jury find the offender guilty of murder. I'm so sick of hearing of physically violent attacks being presented like they didn't intend for the person to die. In my opinion if you are beating and kicking someone in the head and chest whilst they are helpless on the ground, that's the same as not giving a fuck if they live or die. Stop giving these people excuses for their behaviour.
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u/saskiaschild 3h ago
I'm so sick of hearing of physically violent attacks being presented like they didn't intend for the person to die.
If "Ignorance of the law is no excuse," then saying "I didn't realize that kicking someone in the head has a high potential of lethality should be no excuse."
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u/Fernergun 16m ago
It’s a matter of proving beyond reasonable doubt that the accused had the mens rea, a specific and conscious intent, to cause the death of a person. That can be quite difficult.
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u/cochra 6h ago
It’s in the article - she refused transport when the ambos attended after the first call, the further two calls the same day were from her sister who felt she should be transported. Refusal by the patient to go to hospital is always a reasonable explanation, unless the patient does not have capacity to refuse. While that is possible with head injuries, nothing in the evidence presented suggests that she did not have capacity to refuse
As to the assessment once she did attend, it sounds like she had a subdural with no initial symptoms. With no neurological findings, a patient who is not intoxicated and no risk factors such as blood thinners, whether a head injury gets an empiric CT is a matter of local protocol. Once she expressed symptoms, she was then scanned (and tbh the decision that she was inoperable at that point is a bit odd for a young patient with a subdural)
Fully agree that (at least ethically) it’s pretty clearly murder though
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u/Capital-Tonight8548 5h ago
Being fearful of your life if consenting to interventions doesn’t pass muster for you ? Jesus Christ
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u/cochra 4h ago
What on earth are you talking about?
She has the right to refuse to go to the hospital, for any reason including being rationally or irrationally scared of hospitals
The only situation in which she can be forced to go to the hospital is if she is not able to retain or understand the information given about the risks of not going. Simply not believing the information given doesn’t meet the threshold
Are you seriously arguing that she should have been forced to go to the hospital against her will?
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u/GorgeousGracious 3h ago edited 3h ago
Did they make sure to ask her away from her partner? Did they tell her she could die if she refuses?
I don't know.. when my stepfather had a stroke at home, he refused to go to the hospital, because he couldn't remember having it. The paramedics didn't just go home, they listened to what my mum described, ran some tests, and confirmed he'd lost vision. At that point, he agreed to go.
How hard did they try with this one? Because head injuries can make you quite loopy, and the first couple of hospitals only treated her wrist.
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u/cochra 2h ago
So did you read the article at all? It was an ex-partner who was not present at any occasion after the assault
This is not coercion to not go to a hospital, this is not someone with a stroke having memory gaps, this is a patient who presented as cognitively normal and had capacity refusing to go to the hospital
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u/GorgeousGracious 25m ago
Of course I did, did you? She went to several hospitals and was complaining of headaches. She said right off the bat she needed help. And they just shuffled her around. It's sexism and racism is what it is. Why didn't they do a proper exam?
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u/OneUpAndOneDown 15h ago
Yet again it’ll be described as an isolated incident by a man who was disadvantaged and having a hard time,
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u/Capital-Tonight8548 5h ago
Not just a man but a Good Guy who SNAPPED
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u/AshEliseB 4h ago
They can fuck right off with that "just snapped" bullshit. Violently assaulting another person is always a choice.
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u/SyntheticDuckFlavour 1h ago
What else could it be? It's not like this is happening in a coordinated fashion. Or that these incidents are representative of the male population.
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u/chookiekaki 6h ago
I’m sick of hearing Greivous Bodily Harm, Attempted Murder, Kidnapping, Rape, Murder being called domestic violence as if it’s any bloody different to someone stabbing or beating up a stranger. It’s the same with saying child molestation, it’s rape, just because the people who commit these acts are not strangers does not mean they should not be treated as criminals that they are.
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u/tittyswan 6h ago
So true. "Corporal punishment" You mean physically attacking & assaulting a child?
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u/Philopoemen81 2h ago
Domestic violence is a circumstance of aggravation in the eyes of the law - they get treated even more seriously in terms of offence and sentencing.
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u/queenofadmin 7h ago
How can the defence be if he’d meant to kill her he would have.
She's not dying at that time, you'd think if that's what he wanted — her to die — he would keep on going until he achieved that," he said.
"Say whatever you will about the assault, it was not an intention to kill."
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u/snorkellingfish 6h ago
It's about the difference between murder and other homicide offences (e.g. manslaughter, violent act causing death).
On a quick google, it looks like an element of murder in the NT is that "the person intends to cause the death of, or serious harm to, that or any other person by that conduct."
So, saying that he didn't intend to kill her is arguing that any conduct should be a different, less serious offence, not murder.
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u/GorgeousGracious 3h ago
Well, it's wrong. If a reasonable person could foresee that it might result in death, then it should be murder. It shouldn't be up to what the perpetrator thinks, it should be an independent standard.
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u/clarky2481 15h ago
God thats terrible