Brodie Graham Champion in court today. Photo / Gregor Richardson
WARNING: Distressing content.
A 21-year-old who fatally stabbed a man in Momona has been jailed for two years.
Brodie Graham Champion pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Grant Jopson after a murder charge was dropped in the High Court at Dunedin last month, and this morning he can finally be named after suppression lapsed.
Justice Rachel Dunningham said it was an “extremely difficult decision” between imprisonment and home detention.
Jopson’s wife of 33 years Brenda Gamble described how she said goodbye to her husband as he lay “still and cold” in hospital.
“He bled out over a two-hour period ... this is an image I will never forget,” she said.
Gamble said her husband was a selfless man, a good guy.
“Grant was fiercely protective of his family and he died protecting us,” she said.
“My man, my friend ... shouldn’t have been taken away from us like this. The trauma and grief have ripped my insides to pieces.”
Jopson’s brother-in-law Les Gamble told Champion he would never be forgiven.
“You had no reason to kill Grant and you had no right,” he said.
“You’ve made the world a much poorer place.”
It all began in the week before the stabbing when Champion was in Mosgiel and mistakenly believed his 22-year-old neighbour was involved in a road-rage incident.
On October 15 last year, he confronted the man’s mother as she walked a dog, swearing and yelling at her.
Champion gave her a “threatening message” to pass on to her son and when she told her husband what had happened he left the house.
“Right, I am going to sort this out,” Jopson said.
On seeing him and his son arrive, Champion, who had been clipping his hedge, dashed inside the house and grabbed a 20cm kitchen knife.
A heated argument ensued.
“They were a few metres apart and were yelling at each other,” court documents said.
Jopson told the man he had been wrong about the earlier driving accusations and urged him to put down the weapon.
When the defendant backed off, waving the knife in front of him, the father and son followed.
Jopson armed himself with an aluminium broom and hit Champion a few times, during which the head of the implement fell off.
His son threw a terracotta pot, which found its mark.
After being cornered, the court heard Champion was “swinging the knife around wildly” and lunged two or three times.
Jopson sustained a stomach wound and collapsed on the grass.
“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, it hurts,” he said.
A post-mortem showed the 10-13cm-deep wound partially cut a vein and ended in the spine.
The defendant immediately admitted to police he had stabbed the victim and said: “I warned them.”
Crown prosecutor Craig Power said a term of imprisonment was warranted, to “mark the sanctity of life”.
Counsel Sarah Saunderson-Warner argued home detention was still a significant sentence and was appropriate given her client was deemed a low risk of reoffending.
Character references, she said, described him as kind and generous, someone who had never displayed aggressive tendencies.
Justice Dunningham accepted there was “an element of self-defence” involved in Champion’s actions and noted he had no history of violence.
A psychological report shed light on the defendant’s family background of instability which had led to a diagnosis of PTSD, she said.
Gamble outlined the pain of being without her partner.
“Grant was a loud character and made his presence known. The silence of being alone is hard to bear,” she said.
“My poor Grant. He wasn’t supposed to die.”