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Couple sentenced for attack over text taunting
Original Post Date: 8th Feb, 2008 - 2:25pm
It is a miracle that nobody ended up dead!
A couple suffering from depression – and feeding off each other's illnesses – were pushed too far by text taunting and responded with a machete attack on those harassing them. Karlina Marie Yates, 19, a caregiver, got a four month home detention sentence for the charge of aggravated burglary – she took a crowbar to the confrontation. Steven Leonard Clunie, 21, was jailed for three years and five months, and was crying and hugging his partner as he was taken to the cells. He had admitted the charge of aggravated burglary and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. He had taken a machete to the confrontation which escalated when one of the other group threw a brick. Defence counsel Tony Garrett says Clunie lost control at that point and slashed the man on his thigh, and then inflicted wounds on his arm and head. Thirty-five sutures were needed to close the wound in the thigh, where the layers of muscle had been cut right down to the bone. Mr Garrett said the couple had been taunted about their mental state in text messages, and they had replied. Clunie, who had spent time in Hillmorton Hospital last year, had been described in the texts as "a dropnut". He said the taunting would have been manageable for mature adults but for this couple it had been overwhelming. Yates' defence counsel Elizabeth Bulger confirmed that her client had been diagnosed with a major depressive episode days before the attack. "It was one text too many as far as she was concerned."
Source 9r