Drugs, lies and violence: jury finds Ian Conway the aggressor again in murder of Christopher Ward

"I didn't think about what I was doing, I just did it," Conway, 47, said from the witness box in Newcastle Supreme Court earlier this week. "He came at me and I turned around and grabbed [the knife]. I didn't want to get stabbed. I've been stabbed before. It's not nice."

Here was a potentially compelling argument to bolster Conway's self-defence case, explain his fear in that moment and provide the jury with an insight into how he perceived things and why he reacted the way he did.

He had been stabbed before, knew what it was like, and on his version here he was being confronted with a 127kg drug affected and armed man closing in on him. But curiously the stabbing Conway referred to - the one where he was the "victim" - was not explored any further. That may be because of something the jury in Conway's murder trial did not know - that Conway had been stabbed while he was in the middle of committing a violent home invasion on a unit in Hamilton South.

On that occasion, more than a decade ago, Conway and a woman were armed with a tomahawk and an axe handle when they stormed a neighbour's home and attacked the occupants over a $200 drug debt.

Both weapons had the initials "FTW" inscribed on them, which stood for "f--- the world" while another inscription on the axe handle read: "God forgives, I don't."

Conway was the aggressor, the instigator on that occasion and while the jury in his murder trial weren't informed about it they found he was the instigator and the aggressor once again last year in Broadmeadow during the fatal confrontation with Mr Ward.

After deliberating for about 12 hours, the jury on Friday found Conway guilty of murder, rejecting his claims that he was acting in self-defence and finding he had intended to either kill or cause Mr Ward grievous bodily harm when he stabbed him.

Conway had given evidence that he stabbed Mr Ward after the 56-year-old had become angry about his missing methamphetamine, suddenly picked up a knife and walked towards him.

"He was saying he still hasn't got his drugs," Conway said of Mr Ward. "I said, 'oh well, I haven't got it'. Then he's just jumped up, got up and grabbed a knife and come at me. I've just grabbed a knife that was hanging on a door and I stabbed him as he come towards me. I guess I thought he was going to stab me." Mr Ward had injected ice and began behaving erratically in Conway's unit in Broadmeadow Road on the night of March 7 last year.

But the key eyewitness had given evidence that he had calmed down and was sitting on the couch when Conway walked over, put a knife down near him and challenged him to "muck around" with the blade. Conway, according to the witness, had said Mr Ward could use a knife and Conway would fight him barefisted.

When Mr Ward disagreed, the witness said Conway reached across the coffee table and stabbed him once in the stomach, the wound claiming his life the next day.

"Ian was mucking around and just lunged at him with the knife," the witness said. "There was no blood or anything. I didn't think anything of it to be honest."

The witness said Conway "panicked" when he saw Mr Ward's wound and claimed he said Mr Ward was going to "dog" and he should "slit his throat".

As Crown prosecutor Liam Shaw put it in his closing address, Conway had created a dangerous situation - by putting a knife next to a seriously drug affected man - and then tried to use that situation to justify stabbing Mr Ward.

And he pointed out that even on Conway's version, it wasn't clear he genuinely believed he needed to stab Mr Ward to defend himself.

When asked what his intention was when he stabbed Mr Ward, Conway didn't say "to stop him from stabbing or killing me" or "I had no other choice", like you hear in other self-defence cases.

What he said was: "I didn't really have an intention. I didn't really think, I just turned around and done it."

He later elaborated to include the part about not wanting to get stabbed and having been stabbed before.

And he denied saying things about "slitting" Mr Ward's throat to stop him from talking to police or discussing dumping his body around the corner, evidence from the key witness that Mr Shaw said tended to show Conway had not acted in self-defence. And, ultimately, the jury agreed, finding Conway had intended to kill or seriously injure Mr Ward when he stabbed him and was not acting in self-defence.

That time when Conway was stabbed, the incident he drew from in his evidence from all those years ago, ended with him being jailed for a maximum of six years. He's looking at a lot longer behind bars this time.

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