A heroin dealer sent messages during and after an alleged beating at her home, saying underworld figure Sharon Stott "caught" the alleged victim there and had him bashed by another man.
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But the dealer, Catherine Howsan, now claims that is not what happened. She instead says a man purported to be David Evans hit the alleged victim just once with a baseball bat, and only after the alleged victim "started the violence" by grabbing a knife.
Howsan was accused by a prosecutor of changing her story and lying to the ACT Supreme Court out of fear when she gave evidence on Thursday, during the judge-alone trial of Stott, 58, and Evans, 33.
Stott and Evans are jointly charged with forcibly confining the alleged victim, intentionally inflicting actual bodily harm, and making a demand with a threat. Stott is also charged with attempted kidnapping in relation to the January 2019 incident at Howsan's Kambah home.
The alleged victim claims Stott demanded he pay $20,000 as Evans stood over him with a baseball bat, then hit him with it up to 50 times.
He says he grabbed a knife to scare his assailants away as blows rained down on him, resulting in a head wound, broken fingers and bruising "from top to toe".
Stott and Evans have both pleaded not guilty to all charges. Stott admits being at the house but claims the alleged victim's story is false. Evans argues he was not there and if there was a bat-wielding assailant, it was not him.
In court on Thursday, Crown prosecutor Keegan Lee revealed the text messages sent by Howsan around the time of the incident, which Howsan witnessed.
They included that Stott "had a guy bashed in my home", and that Stott had "caught" the alleged victim there.
Howsan also told police at the scene that a man alleged to be Evans came to her house with Stott and grabbed a baseball bat that was inside, made threats about an alleged debt, and then used the bat to repeatedly "smash" the alleged victim.
Howsan then gave a much different version of events when she took the witness stand on Thursday.
"From what I remember [now], it was only once that [the alleged victim] got hit, and he started it," Howsan told the court.
"[The alleged victim] grabbed the knife. He started the violence."
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She said she could not deny sending the text messages during and shortly after the incident, but insisted they did not accurately reflect what had happened.
She explained away some of the messages, of whom her father was one recipient, by saying she often told him made-up stories in the hope he would take pity on her and give her money.
Howsan also said she remembered having spoken to police at the scene, but not what she had told them.
She admitted that as well as being a heroin dealer around the time of the incident, she was a heavy user and had been "significantly affected" by the drug that day.
Howsan rejected Mr Lee's suggestion that she lied to the court and that the only reason her story had changed was that she feared Stott.
Later on Thursday, Evans' barrister Jason Moffett sought to explain how his client's DNA could be a possible match to that found on the baseball bat, given Evans' defence is that he was not at the Kambah home during the incident.
Mr Moffett suggested to Howsan that Evans was one of the many people she had allowed into her home to administer heroin.
Mr Moffett said Evans had come into contact with the bat while at the house in the days prior to the incident.
Howsan denied this, admitting there were a lot of people coming and going, but saying she had never seen Evans until the day in question, when Evans is alleged to have wielded the baseball bat.
The trial, before Justice John Burns, continues.
