A 29-year-old man told police that he had gone too far when he stabbed a visitor to his home in 2019, a Supreme Court jury heard on Tuesday.
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A police video interview with Daniel James Crisp, of South Launceston, was played to the jury in which he said he "f...ed up".
Mr Crisp has pleaded not guilty to assaulting Daniel James McNeill by punching him to the head and body several times on March 16, 2019.
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He has also pleaded not guilty to committing an unlawful act with the intention of causing bodily harm and that he did cause grievous bodily harm to Mr McNeill by stabbing him to the abdomen and chest several times with a knife.
Defence counsel Grant Tucker says Mr Crisp was acting in the defence of his partner.
The Crown says Mr Crisp's reactions were over the top.
LGH registrar David Ladyman told the jury that Mr McNeill suffered a punctured lung and his injuries from six stab wounds could have been fatal.
The seven-woman, five-man jury is likely to begin its deliberations on Tuesday after a summing up by acting Justice Shane Marshall.
The court heard differing versions of a sexual encounter between Mr McNeill and Mr Crisp's partner after a night of drinking on March 15-16, 2019.
Mr McNeill said he had consensual oral sex and sexual intercourse on the couch at the house that Mr Crisp shares with his partner.
However, when Mr Crisp gave evidence in the Supreme Court in Launceston he said that he believed that Mr McNeill was about to sexually assault his partner who had passed out.
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"She was unconscious and he had his hand on her leg and up her skirt," he said.
He said he had woken to silence and walked out of his bedroom into the lounge room and saw Mr McNeill.
He said he had jumped over the back of the couch and punched Mr McNeill.
He said Mr McNeill was "very drunk" and had been saying that "he meant no harm".
Mr Crisp said that after punching him he left Mr McNeill for about two seconds to grab a knife from a drawer in the kitchen.
Under cross examination from Crown prosecutor Peter Sherriff, Mr Crisp agreed that the potential sexual assault ceased as soon as he entered the room.
"The threat to your partner stopped but you continued to punch Mr McNeill?" he asked.
"Yes," Mr Crisp replied.
"Not satisfied with punching him you also grabbed a knife and stabbed him?" he asked
"Yes," Mr Crisp replied.
Mr Crisp's partner told the court on Monday that she woke up to hear the two men fighting.
She said no consensual sexual activity occurred.
In his second police interview, Mr Crisp said he had disposed of Mr McNeill's mobile phone after he found it under the couch and that he had thrown the knife into the rubbish.
He told police that he had gone a step too far.
"I'm not that sort of person I was just in a rage," he said.
He told the jury that he had lied in his first police interview because he was "shitting bricks".
He told police in the first interview that he had not seen anything inappropriate between Mr McNeill and his partner and he denied that he had stabbed him.
In summing up Mr Tucker said the force used by Mr Crisp was reasonable in the circumstances.