A WOMAN who stabbed her “complete idiot” boyfriend at an 18th birthday party last year has been found guilty of intentionally wounding him.
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Meceliza Lisa Perez picked up two knives and pushed the blade of one of them into the man’s right hip area during a party at a Rocherlea house in May last year.
She admitted to detectives later that night that she wanted to stab him, after he “drank pretty much everything” at the party over a 10-hour period and became “loud and obnoxious”.
“He tried to cuddle me, so I stabbed him” Perez said during her police interview.
“I didn’t think I got him. I didn’t realise I’d stabbed the poor f-----.”
The man has since made a full recovery, but Perez chose to plead not guilty to the charge in the Launceston Supreme Court, claiming her actions were in self-defence.
Despite her 28-year-old boyfriend taking the stand and giving evidence in her favour, the jury took less than four hours to reach a verdict.
Perez will now spend at least the next four nights in custody ahead of her sentencing next Tuesday.
Crown prosecutor John Ransom condemned the actions of both.
He called the victim “a drunken idiot” and said Perez had acted out of anger.
“If people were to go around stabbing each other because they don’t like them, we’d be resorting to the law of the jungle,” he said in his closing address.
“That’s not self-defence. It’s anger… not self-preservation – they’re different.”
Mr Ransom drew smirks from the jury when he said he was glad it wasn’t his job to convince the jury of the victim’s respectability.
“Fortunately it’s not my job to convince you that (the victim) is Australian of the Year. He has acted like a complete idiot.”
Prior to the stabbing, the victim had gotten into a fight with two neighbours and chased them down the street.
He later pushed Perez down some stairs and yelled at her, accusing her of sleeping with one of the men.
After he was stabbed, another neighbour headbutted him in the face and police were called.
It took multiple officers to restrain the man and medical staff at the Launceston General Hospital had to sedate him so they could treat him.
“(The victim’s) behaviour has gotten to a point where people have had to leave (the party),” Perez’s lawyer Julia Ker said.
Perez and the man are still dating.