A YOUNG man who provided the knife for a stabbing during an ugly street brawl in Newcastle West has narrowly avoid jail and will instead spend the next 18 months in home detention.
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He was expected to be sentenced in Newcastle District Court in August and was looking at a jail term, but a compelling argument from defence barrister Rebecca Suters about Martin's intellectual disability and capacity to think through the consequences, along with emotional evidence from his mother gave Judge Peter McGrath pause.
Judge McGrath adjourned the matter until Tuesday to see whether Martin was suitable for home detention and community service as part of a three-year intensive corrections order.
It was an ugly brawl in the early hours of the morning; two groups of young men trading punches as bystanders urged them on.
But when Martin approached his mate, Coora-Jye Wieczorek, it quickly became a brutal stabbing as Wieczorek, 19, twice stabbed a man who was trying to intervene, the second blow leaving the blade lodged in the victim's side and breaking his rib.
After hearing a statement in August about how the stabbing had changed the victim's life, Martin gave evidence and said he felt very sorry about what he had done.
"I felt pressured, they were like telling me to take [the knife out that night]," he said. "I put it in my pocket and I went. "He asked for it and I felt like pressured again for it, so I passed it to him. "I wasn't really thinking, why I did do it, I thought he was going to scare them with it but I had a feeling he would use it too."
Judge McGrath said Martin had been deemed suitable for home detention and ordered that he serve a three-year intensive corrections order with 120 hours of community service.
Martin will serve the first 18 months in home detention, but will be able to leave home for work.
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