An Illawarra man who was staying in the Mangerton unit where Mark Dower was allegedly bashed and held against his will in the days before his dead body was stowed in a laundry has rejected suggestions the 56-year-old was already in bad shape when he arrived at the unit.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Paul William Turner told the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday that Mr Dower was “all right” when he saw him in the company of his alleged killer, Mark Jenkin, around lunchtime on March 22, 2015 – 25 days before Mr Dower’s decomposing body was discovered in a shared laundry at the Crana Place public housing complex.
“There was nothing wrong with him; he might have looked a bit uncomfortable but he was all right,” Turner said when asked how Mr Dower was behaving that day.
“I don’t think he wanted to be there. [I’m] not a professional but you just know by people’s mannerisms – he just didn’t, like, want to be there.”
Turner was asked about a series of injuries Mr Dower was said to have had before he went with Jenkin that day, including swelling to his mouth, a black right eye, a lump on his forehead and fresh bruising on the inside of his ear.
But Turner told the court he didn’t see any injuries on Mr Dower when he saw him that day.
However, in a video taken later that night, Mr Dower is seen in an injured state, visibly frail, semi-conscious and bleeding, having lost control of his bowels.
(Jenkin allegedly told Turner he wanted to use the video to show Mr Dower, a known alcoholic, what he was like when he was drunk.)
Turner told the court he had heard Jenkin give Mr Dower “a decent slap” while the pair had been sitting on the couch about 45 minutes earlier after Mr Dower appeared unable to answer some of Jenkin’s questions.
Turner said he didn’t see the slap and couldn’t determine how hard it had been by the sound.
He also recalled seeing Mr Dower fall over at one stage when he exited the bathroom (prior to the video).
“I was sitting on the lounge. I just caught him out of the corner of my eye, he comes stumbling out of the bathroom and sort of fell forwards on the floor,” Turner said.
“He just stumbled, he couldn’t balance himself.”
Turner said Mr Dower was “fine” the next morning. He said he left the house at 3pm.
The court has previously heard Jenkin gave differing explanations for Mr Dower’s subsequent death to various associates, including that Jenkin was trying to help him wean of alcohol and that Mr Dower had been bashed by someone else before his death.
The trial continues before Justice Peter Hamill.