A woman who stabbed her cousin to death at Brighton-Le-Sands during a fight over a damaged new luxury car will spend a minimum of six years and nine months in jail.
Katherine Abdallah, 36, was convicted of the manslaughter of Suzie Sarkis, 21, in a Moate Avenue home in February 9, 2013.
Abdallah was originally sentenced to eight years and three months but the sentence was reduced on appeal.
With time served, she could be paroled in four years.
Imposing sentence in the NSW Supreme Court, Justice Julia Lonergan said, "This terrible crime has torn a family apart”.
Outside the court, the victim’s sister Christine Sarkis said, “I hope cousin Abdallah rots in jail. I will never forgive her. I will never forget what she did.”
The court heard, after Abdallah stabbed Ms Sarkis in the chest, she resumed her seat on the couch, where she had been before the argument, while Ms Sarkis fell to the ground.
She also told a triple zero operator she was applying pressure to the wound when she was actually cleaning the knife – spraying it, drying it and putting it back in its block.
Ms Sarkis was a flatmate in Abdallah’s Brighton-Le-Sands home.
The couple fought after Abdallah discovered Ms Sarkis took her new Mercedes without permission and damaged a wheel.
Police came to Abdallah’s house to tell her officers had pulled over her Mercedes for speeding, and the driver had sped off, damaging a wheel.
The court heard this led to a several fierce arguments the following day and the pair were seen in a physical fight in public.
Another fight occurred shortly before 6pm and CCTV footage shown to the jury showed Sarkis kicking and punching at a shut door, throwing and shattering a vase and throwing papers all over the floor.
Abdallah used a four-pack of drink bottles to strike her cousin.
Justice Lonergan said, at times, both women held the upper hand.
“The CCTV footage showed a volatile relationship between the offender and Ms Sarkis,” the judge said.
“There is no doubt that the offender escalated the fight by moving to the kitchen, arming herself with not one but two large knives,” she said.
Ms Sarkis then stepped towards Abdallah with her arms by her sides, then Abdallah repeatedly lunged at her cousin.
“The third lunge that made contact with her must have had significant force behind it,” Justice Lonergan said.
CCTV footage inside the townhouse showed her looking at and rolling her cousin on her back after the stabbing.
Abdallah told the triple zero operator "there was a bit of an accident in the house, there was a bit of a fight" and that the weapon was a vase.
Justice Lonergan said the fatal attack “stemmed more from a lack of self-control rather than any planning”.
Abdallah wrote a letter to the court four months after the jury’s verdict, saying “I’ve never been able to accept that my killing Suzie was criminal because I acted in self-defence”.
Though, she also said there was nothing she regretted more in her life.
Justice Lonergan said this indicated Abdallah hadn’t taken full responsibility for the slaying.
- Fairfax Media and AAP
