But Giles said that on May 6 of last year, her client “decided to leave” Robson.
In his South Auckland sleepout where she was staying, Green began to pack her suitcase, Giles said.
However, the woman never made it to the gate with her belongings, Giles continued, as “something happened that changed everything”.
It has never been in dispute that Green fatally stabbed Robson, Giles said, but the Crown wanted the jury to believe that the “something” was murder.
“It is not,” she stated.
The jury needed to decide whether Green was acting in self-defence, Giles said, and to do so they needed to put themselves in Green’s shoes.
Giles told the court Green suffers from complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) and a traumatic brain injury, which can “heighten a person’s perception of threat”.
She alleged Green stabbed Robson in response to him “hurting her”.
“Whether or not that was reasonable in the circumstances is a matter for you to consider.”
The jury would hear from a “leading expert” on intimate partner violence who would explain how victims behave, based on knowledge rather than misconceptions, Giles said.
First up, however, was forensic psychiatrist Dr Jacqueline Short, who had assessed Green after multiple sessions.
Early childhood adversity, inter-familial violence and intergenerational trauma
Short appeared via audio-visual link and detailed what she had learned about Green’s personal history, which she said was one of early childhood adversity, inter-familial violence and intergenerational trauma.
Short said Green suffered early physical and emotional abuse and disrupted attachment, particularly from her mother, who was “absent” and “emotionally unavailable” while she battled addiction.
When Green was 17, her life was “marked” by a serious assault; later, as an adult, she suffered repeated intimate partner violence .
That combination of her early and adult life experiences had caused Green to develop CPTSD, the doctor said.
As opposed to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), she explained CPTSD was the result of repeated traumas with multiple exacerbated triggers and symptoms.
Green was experiencing CPTSD by 2017, when an “aggressive coercive act” happened to her while she was trying to leave a violent partner, Short said.
She was seriously assaulted by another intimate partner the following year, Short continued, leaving her with a traumatic brain injury and concussion disorders.
By this point, Green was “hyper-sensitised” to potential threats, projecting a tough self-image as a coping mechanism and having angry outbursts if that image was threatened, the doctor said.
As well as those flashes of rage, Green was prone to shutting down or “blunting” both responses, particularly in reaction to violence and perceived violence, Short explained.
Green was also prone to “blacking out” or “zoning out” in those outbursts, meaning she had no memory of what had happened.
Short said the condition family members saw Green to be in immediately after the stabbing – shaken, flustered, lost and not saying anything – was consistent with dissociation, or shutting down, brought on by trauma.
Giles brought up what Green had said to whānau member Jessica Tahere, that she had “schiz’d out” and become that “other person” and slit Robson’s artery.
It was Tahere’s evidence that Green spaced out after that confession, then came to and acted as if nothing had happened.
“It says to me that Ms Green was trying to make sense of what happened at that time and was not able to do so,” Short said in evidence.
Al-Janabi zeroed in on the fact that a traumatic brain injury was a “broad category of injury” which, apart from headaches and sensitivity to bright lights, hadn’t significantly impaired Green. Short agreed.
The prosecutor asserted that Short couldn’t comment on Green’s intent “at the moment of the stabbing”.
“Yes, I don’t speak to the ultimate issue,” she replied.
Intimate partner violence
The court then heard from intimate partner violence expert Rachel Smith, who had no prior knowledge of the case and was called on to dispel common misconceptions about family violence and its victims.
There were many false public misconceptions about victims of family violence and their behaviours, she said, including the outdated term of “battered women’s syndrome”.
It was a “common myth” that victims were passive and that “true” victims don’t use “resistance”. Smith had found in her research that the opposite was true.
Selwyn Robson died at the scene of the stabbing. Photo / Facebook
This included violent resistance, Smith said, explaining that victims would use force to stop force.
She also said long-standing patterns of abuse meant that victims of family violence were not necessarily responding to an immediate threat, but to what they knew had happened to them in the past.
They respond to “everything their partner’s ever done to them”, she said, and threats were “made credible” by what’s happened historically.
These responses and acts of resistance can be exacerbated if the abuser is in a position of power – such as a gang member or police officer, for example, she said.
They can also be made worse by the victim being in a lower socioeconomic position, which, coupled with a fear of those around her, could make it more difficult for a victim to get outside help, Smith said.
Al-Janabi pointed out that Smith was there for educational reasons and not to comment on what happened between Green and Robson.
She asked Smith if that issue was outside her area of expertise.
Smith responded that she did have experience, having read more than 100 intimate partner violence police homicide reports and finding what were “distinct patterns”.
The Crown and defence will give their closing addresses tomorrow and Justice James MacGillivray will sum up the case on Monday before the jury begins its deliberations.
Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and previously worked at the Otago Daily Times, Gore Ensign and Metro Magazine. She has an interest in court and general reporting. She’s currently based in Auckland covering justice related stories.