A man who used a makeshift spear to kill a good Samaritan trying to help a crying domestic violence victim has been jailed for nine years.
Newcastle Supreme Court Justice Helen Wilson on Thursday accepted Paul Newburn was less culpable because his entrenched drug use and extensive criminal history had only started after he was sexually abused as a teenager when being held in a juvenile remand centre.
Justice Wilson said Newburn, who had undiagnosed ADHD and Tourette s syndrome, turned to heavy use of ice and heroin to cope with the trauma of what happened to him when he was 16 or 17 and had been in a state of panic when confronted by the good Samaritan Glen Smith.