by Cam Lucadou-Wells
A further “more serious” charge has been laid against a man accused of stabbing a victim in the chest in a Berwick shopping centre may face more serious charges, a court has heard on 20 August.
Jikany Puoch, 29, of Berwick, had been charged with nine offences, including two counts of reckless conduct endangering death, over allegedly injuring the 24-year-old man as well as a 77-year-old man on Sunday 11 August.
A prosecutor at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court applied for the matter to be uplifted to a higher court due to the new charge involving a serious injury.
A day earlier, a police prosecutor told the court that the 24-year-old victim suffered a “close to fatal” injury.
According to charge sheets, the man was stabbed 5 millimetres from his heart.
If Puoch had allegedly used a “standard kitchen knife”, it would “almost certainly have caused death”.
To date, the victim remains in hospital, the court heard.
He underwent keyhole surgery for a grade-1 laceration to his liver. He’d also suffered a laceration to his stomach, a laceration to his diaphragm and a collapsed lung.
He may need further surgery for other unknown internal lacerations.
The victim – who is a rigger – had missed significant work and suffered PTSD after the incident, the prosecutor said.
The older victim had been discharged from hospital later on the same day of the alleged assault, the court heard.
On 20 August, magistrate Jacinta Studham ruled the more serious charge had to go to a filing hearing at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday 27 August.
The remaining summary offences were to be heard at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 11 September.
