A woman has told the murder trial for her Lavington boyfriend’s killer that the accused was “completely fine” on the night of the shooting.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
That was in strong contrast to his behaviour the previous couple of months, Jacinta Lekic said in response to questioning from Crown prosecutor Wayne Creasey SC.
“There was one time he came around and told Luke and myself there were midgets in his roof,” Ms Lekic told the Supreme Court in Albury on Tuesday.
“There was another time he came around and had said people in the property across the road from his place were spying on him as well, so he went and smashed up that property.”
Hart has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Hargrave, 31, who died in Albury hospital the morning after being shot in the head with a .22 calibre pen pistol, but has admitted to manslaughter.
Defence barrister Eric Wilson SC told the jury on Monday that Hart was not guilty because he was suffering from substantial mental impairment at the time of the shooting, which happened on October 29, 2013.
Ms Lekic briefly broke down in the witness box when she recalled discovering her fatally injured boyfriend in the cinema room of their Vickers Road home.
She earlier told of how his use of methamphetamine, or ice, had escalated in the five months they had been together.
“At the start he wasn’t using it that much, that I knew of (or at least) in front of me. Towards the end it was every day. Probably the whole of October.”
Ms Lekic said Mr Hargrave had become “paranoid” leading up to the shooting, though accepted Mr Creasey’s submission that “worried” was also apt.
That, she said, was linked strongly to Mr Hargrave’s attempts to secure a major deal to on-sell ice in the Albury region.
That had been exacerbated by Mr Hargrave not being able to get in contact with a friend who had agreed to travel to Sydney to collect the drugs, in which Hart had a significant financial stake.
She so abhorred drugs that she threatened to “pack my bags and leave” if Mr Hargrave went to Sydney himself.
Ms Lekic also recalled calling Hart a “dickhead” when he showed her the pen pistol, tucked up his sleeve.
That was not long before she heard a loud bang come from the cinema room where she knew Mr Hargrave and Hart – both dealers in the drug – regularly smoked ice.
The trial before Justice Stephen Campbell will resume on Thursday.
