Jurors tasked with deciding whether a Sydney cleaner’s attack on 92-year-old woman amouxjmtzywnted to murder has been reminded even if they return a not-guilty verdict, she will not be able to avoid criminal responsibility.
Handy Papanicolaou, 38, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Marjorie Welsh who was bashed and stabbed inside her home at Ashbury in Sydney’s inner west in January 2019.
Ms Papanicolaou and her legal team say while she assaulted Ms Welsh and admits to manslaughter, she was suffering a substantial impairment of the mind at the time and she is no murderer.
As her NSW Supreme Court trial enters its final days, defence barrister Tom Quilter conceded Ms Papanicolaou had committed a “brutal, ferocious assault”.
“There is no issue here that Ms Papanicolaou did assault Marjorie Welsh … there’s no issue that that assault led to Marjorie Welsh’s death … and there is no suggestion from me that this was an act of self defence,” he said in his final address to members of the jury.
“What we are dealing with in this case is a massive deviation. A woman who has never done anything violent suddenly carries out a brutal, ferocious assault.”
In the moments before the attack, Mr Quilter said Ms Welsh, who died six weeks after the attack, had told police Ms Papanicolaou smiled and looked “demented” as she beat her with a walking stick.
“This whole event was without explanation and totally irrational,” he said.
Mr Quilter said the court heard there was no evidence to suggest Ms Papanicolaou had ever acted violently in the past and there was no “rational motive or explanation for what occurred”.
He told the jury that given those factors, it had to weigh up on the balance of probabilities, whether or not Ms Papanicolaou had a substantial impairment of the mind at the time she assaulted Ms Welsh.
Quoting from a report prepared by a forensic psychiatrist, Mr Quilter said Dr Kerri Eagle wrote that “in Ms Papanicolaou’s case, she’s always, it seems, been able to control her anger and frustration without resorting to violence so you would expect it would take a reasonably severe form of mental illness or a severe stressor to overcome those natural coping mechanism and that level of inhibition”.
Mr Quilter told the court any suggestion Ms Papanicolaou, who was spotted gambling at Canterbury RSL on the morning of the assault, was involved in an attempted theft gone wrong before the attack also did not make sense.
“There’s no doubt she lost money and that her bank balance was very low.
“Did it mean she had to go to Marjorie Welsh’s house and steal?”
Mr Quilter said Ms Papanicolaou knew there was money she could have accessed at Ms Welsh’s daughter Elizabeth’s house, which she had a key to in Ashfield, not far down the road from the scene of the attack.
“That money was sitting there and was available to her,” he said.
“There’s cash available to her just 600 or 700 metres away from where Marjorie Welsh lives in Ashbury.
“Moments before Ms Papanicolaou enters the home of Marjorie Welsh she’s persistently contacting one of her friends. And what you might think members of the jury is that is not consistent with somebody who was about to undertake an act of theft.”
References made in court about $8 million and the fact a settlement on Ms Welsh’s house occurred less than two months before she was attacked were also confronted by Mr Quilter in the first part of his closing address.
“Whatever the precise chronology of the settlement, there is no rational explanation put forward to you as to how Hanny Papanicolaou could get her hands on that $8 million,” he said.
Mr Quilter reminded jurors that if they accepted Ms Papanicolaou had a substantial impairment they would be asked to deliver a verdict of not guilty to murder, but guilty to manslaughter.
“So in other words, even if you accept the defence, you will still be asked to find Ms Papanicolaou guilty of a criminal offence,” he said.
“You are not being asked to consider a verdict that would mean she has no criminal responsibility at all.”
The trial continues on Tuesday when Mr Quilter has been scheduled to conclude his closing address.
