Manslaughter finding for workmate stabbing

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A Muswellbrook man who “freaked out” and stabbed his work mentor to death after allegedly waking to find the man sexually assaulting him has been found not guilty of murder.

After a trial in the NSW Supreme Court in NSW, the jury on Monday instead found Jamie Cust guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Filipino man Jesus Bebita, 41, was found in pool of blood on the bathroom floor of his Scone flat in December 2018, with 49 wounds to his head, back and hands.

Jamie Cust had stuffed his bloodied clothes into garbage bags and pondered fleeing the country, before he turned himself in to police in the hours after the attack.

Cust’s barrister Paul Rosser argued the then 21-year-old was acting under extreme provocation after waking to find his pants down and 41-year-old Mr Bebita – who was “something of a mentor” – “rubbing his dick on him”.

“I woke up, and we were in bed together, and he was touching my penis, and I freaked out,” the court heard he told officers at Muswellbrook police station.

Something “very significant” must have taken place for the frenzied stabbing to occur, Mr Rosser argued.

“Ultimately, using common sense … it is probable that something caused him to lose self-control and it’s probable that it was what he, the accused, said it was.”

Cust was seen by a sexual assault nurse, and a series of tests conducted, during which no genital injury was noted and no semen detected.

However, semen was detected on Mr Bebita’s penis in the post-mortem, and his body was found without underwear and with his pants on back-to-front.

Cust, now 23, will be sentenced in October.

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