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Supreme Court 27 November 2025

R v KL

[2025] NSWSC 1414

Assault & violenceHomicidePublic order & justice offences
CRIMINAL LAW MURDER SINGLE COUNT OF MURDER TRIAL BY JUDGE ALONE CRIMINAL LAW FEATURES OF OFFENDING GANG VIOLENCE

Citation: [2025] NSWSC 1414
Court: Supreme Court of New South Wales
Date: 27 November 2025
Judge(s): Garling J

Background

The accused, identified by the pseudonym KL, was 14 years and 6 months old when he fatally stabbed the 17-year-old deceased with a single knife wound to the chest at the Sydney Royal Easter Show on 11 April 2022. Both were associated with rival youth gangs: the accused with "Ready for Anything" (RFA), based in Mt Druitt, and the deceased with "67", associated with the Doonside area.

The accused pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the statutory alternative of manslaughter. The Crown did not accept that plea in full discharge of the indictment, and a trial proceeded. After a jury trial in April/May 2025 ended without a verdict following approximately two weeks of deliberation, the accused successfully applied for a judge-alone retrial, which was heard by Garling J in November 2025.

The accused had been in juvenile detention since his arrest on 15 July 2022. The trial required the court to determine whether the killing amounted to murder or manslaughter, having regard to three alternative pathways the defence advanced: lack of the requisite intention for murder, excessive self-defence, and substantial impairment by reason of PTSD.

  • Intention: Did the accused intend to kill or cause grievous bodily harm when he stabbed the deceased, as required for murder?
  • Excessive self-defence: Even if the intention for murder was established, did the accused believe it was necessary to act as he did to defend himself or others (accepting that his response was not objectively reasonable), thereby reducing murder to manslaughter?
  • Substantial impairment (s 23A Crimes Act 1900): Was the accused's capacity to understand events, judge right from wrong, or control himself substantially impaired by a mental health impairment (diagnosed PTSD) at the time of the offence, and was the impairment so substantial as to warrant reducing liability from murder to manslaughter?
  • Relevance of post-offence conduct: What weight, if any, should be given to the accused's post-offence behaviour (including self-recorded videos mocking the deceased's death) when assessing intention and the s 23A(1)(b) community standards test?
  • Expert disagreement: Both psychiatric experts agreed on a diagnosis of PTSD, but disagreed on the degree to which it impaired the accused at the time of the offence. How should the court resolve that disagreement?

Decision

The judgment text provided is truncated, so the full reasoning and ultimate verdict are not available. However, the structure of the decision and the issues as framed by the court can be summarised from the available portion.

Garling J carefully set out the factual background, including the accused's troubled upbringing (domestic violence, parental separation, poor school attendance, exposure to gang culture from a young age), and his exposure to multiple significant violent incidents before the fatal stabbing. The court accepted that these histories, as given to the two expert psychiatrists, were generally accurate.

The Crown's case relied not only on the circumstances of the stabbing itself (the accused was armed with a knife at a public event, reached through associates to stab the deceased in the chest) but also on post-offence material. This included self-recorded videos, electronic notes, and intercepted telephone calls in which the accused made admissions and indicated his motivation.

The accused's defence rested on three alternative bases: (1) absence of the specific intention required for murder, (2) excessive self-defence, and (3) substantial impairment under s 23A of the Crimes Act 1900. On the third pathway, both expert psychiatrists diagnosed PTSD, but they disagreed about the extent to which it impaired the accused's self-control at the time of the offence. The court was also required to apply the "community standards" limb of the s 23A test, considering factors such as the accused's youth, vulnerability, PTSD diagnosis, developmental immaturity, and his history of gang involvement.

Because the judgment is truncated, the final findings on each issue and the verdict are not available for this summary. Practitioners should read the full decision for the court's conclusions.

Orders Made

  • The full orders are not available from the truncated judgment text. The court was sitting in a judge-alone criminal trial to determine whether the accused was guilty of murder or the alternative of manslaughter.

Key Takeaways

  • A young accused's traumatic background, developmental immaturity, and mental health diagnosis (in this instance, PTSD) grounded multiple alternative pathways to reduce murder to manslaughter. The two psychiatric experts agreed on diagnosis but diverged on the degree of impairment at the time of the offence, highlighting the distinction between diagnosis and functional impairment as a critical evidentiary issue.

  • The Crown relied heavily on self-recorded videos, electronic communications, and intercepted calls as post-offence conduct evidence. The Supreme Court explicitly considered whether disrespectful post-offence conduct, including mocking the deceased's death, was relevant to both the question of intention and the community standards assessment under s 23A(1)(b), treating such material as forensically significant.

  • Under the s 23A substantial impairment framework, a diagnosis alone is insufficient: the impairment must be "so substantial as to warrant" the reduction to manslaughter. The community standards element required the Court to weigh competing considerations, including gang affiliation, the accused's history of violence, and the accused's vulnerability, in determining whether the reduction was warranted.

  • Following a jury trial that ended without a verdict after approximately two weeks of deliberation, the accused successfully applied for a judge-alone retrial pursuant to s 133 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986, as reported at [2025] NSWSC 1398. Garling J presided over the retrial in November 2025.

  • Both prosecution and defence experts were required to address the full factual matrix, including the interplay of gang affiliation, pre-existing trauma, adolescent brain development, and the accused's prior exposure to violence and its psychological consequences, illustrating the complex evidentiary landscape that arises in gang-related offences involving young accused persons.

Legislation and Cases Referenced

Legislation:
- Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), ss 4C, 23A, 419
- Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW), s 133
- Evidence Act 1995 (NSW), ss 165, 191
- Mental Health and Cognitive Impairment Forensic Provisions Act 2020 (NSW)

Cases:
- R v KL [2025] NSWSC 1398 (application for judge-alone trial)
- Shepherd v The Queen [1990] HCA 56; (1990) 170 CLR 573