Backpacker jailed for stabbing man to death in row over God and evolution
Last updated at 15:22pm on 14.12.07
An English backpacker who stabbed a Scottish traveller to death during a row about creationism and evolution was sent to jail for five years by a judge in Australia.
Alexander York, 33, from Essex, had become involved in a bitter argument over the origins of mankind and later, in the caravan park where they were staying, the row turned to violence.
Scottish backpacker Rudi Boa, 28, from Inverness, fell dying into his girlfriend's arms after being stabbed in the chest by York in January last year.
The Englishman, who pleaded not guilty to murder, was convicted of manslaughter.
Justice Michael Adams, sentencing York in the New South Wales Supreme Court in Sydney yesterday, said Mr Boa and girlfriend Gillian Brown, both biomedical scientists, had met up with York at a pub in the town of Tumut, near the caravan park where they were all staying, and a discussion about creationism escalated into a shouting match.
The Scottish couple, who were staying in Tumut in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, picking fruit as part of a year-long round-the-world trip, had been arguing the case of evolution, while York, also fruit picking, had asserted that humans had been created as described in the Bible.
“Although this became perhaps a little sharp-edged, it did not really amount to anything,” said the judge.
“For some reason, however, the offender's mood changed suddenly and he began to abuse Mr Boa and Miss Brown.
“There was no hint of a physical confrontation and what happened amounted to little more than a brief verbal contretemps.”
The altercation had been defused by the time the Scottish couple left the hotel. But witnesses told police that the pair had complained their night had been ruined by a "bloke who had gone mental", describing him using several derogatory terms.
The row blew up again after the Scots couple arrived back at the caravan park, when all three were quite drunk.
The court heard that York, who had been making dinner, knocked a pizza box out of Miss Brown's hand outside his tent as the argument escalated, before stabbing Mr Boa with a kitchen knife.
York claimed he had lashed out in self-defence after being attacked by Mr Boa.
The court heard earlier that she had then slapped York in the face and he grabbed her by the throat and pushed her to the ground. It was then, she told the court at the earlier hearing, that she saw "something" in York's hand and heard him say he had a knife and would stab Boa.
She then saw Boa stumble back a couple of steps before he collapsed in her arms.
The judge said he had handed out a sentence at the lower end of the scale, partly because of the "accidental nature" of the stabbing.
“I do not believe that he took aim, but rather thrust out,” he said. “I think he knew that the knife was in his hand ... but he did not actually turn his mind to the potentially serious consequences of doing this.”
With time already served, York will be eligible for release in January 2009.