A man allegedly beaten with a baseball bat had previously threatened to kill a "big, bad criminal figure" he now accuses of holding him hostage.
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The man's credibility and motives were called into question on Wednesday, as Sharon Ann Stott and David Micheal Evans face a judge-alone trial in the ACT Supreme Court.
Stott and Evans are jointly charged with forcibly confining the man, intentionally inflicting actual bodily harm, and making a demand with a threat. Stott is further charged with attempted kidnapping.
The charges follow a January 2019 incident at a Kambah home, where the man has told the court he was detained in a standover job by Stott and a man he identified using a police photo board as Evans.
The man says Stott demanded that he pay an alleged $20,000 debt that he knew nothing about, while Evans menacingly brandished a baseball bat.
Evans allegedly hit the man up to 50 times with the bat before the man, who had "freaked out", got his hands on a knife and scared Evans and Stott into running from the house.
Stott, 58, and Evans, 33, have each pleaded not guilty to all charges. Stott admits being at the house at the time in question, but disputes the alleged victim's version of events. Evans argues that if there was an offender wielding a bat, it was not him.
In court on Wednesday, the alleged victim said he did not owe Stott money. He said he had always had a good relationship with Stott prior to the incident.
But Stott's barrister Steven Whybrow revealed that the man had admitted in another case to sending a text message to a family member about 10 months before the incident.
In the message, the man called himself a "crazy motherf....." and said he would "kill a few c...." and be happy for 10 minutes, then kill himself. He went on to name Stott as the first person he would kill.
Mr Whybrow questioned why this would be if the man's claims that he held "no grudges" against Stott were true.
He suggested that what really happened at the Kambah house was that the man, a heroin user, "got lippy" and started a fight, and was only hit with the bat after trying to arm himself with a knife.
Mr Whybrow put it to the man that Stott had never made threats or demanded any money, and that she had actually tried to calm the situation.
Mr Whybrow contended that the man "went crazy" and tried to cover up the fact he was the aggressor in the incident by crafting what he thought would be a believable story about Stott holding him hostage.
"You knew that she had this reputation about being a big, bad criminal figure in Canberra," Mr Whybrow told the man.
"Her reputation was larger than life."
But the man rejected Mr Whybrow's suggestions and maintained that he was held hostage and beaten in the house.
Later on Wednesday, Evans' barrister Jason Moffett questioned the alleged victim's identification of Evans as the man with the bat.
Mr Moffett suggested that the alleged victim, before picking Evans out of a police photo board line-up, had been told by others that Evans was "the person who did you wrong".
The alleged victim agreed that others had told him this, but said he not could recall who.
The trial, before Justice John Burns, continues.
