An alcohol-fuelled knifeman has been jailed for stabbing a father in the face, stomach and chest amid a years-long feud between rival indigenous clans in a remote Far North Queensland town.
Ian Barry Koo-Oila, 33, who has a long history of violence, was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment in Cairns District Court last week over the horrific knife attack in Aurukun in July last year.
Crown Prosecutor Peter Feeney told the court that Koo-Oila was drunk on rum and beer when he called out “you want to fight me” to a 15-year-old boy who was walking home early in the morning, the Cairns Post reported.
Koo-Oila then ran into a house where the teenager’s father lived, waking the man up, and when the dad ran to the front of the house to help his son Koo-Oila stabbed him in the stomach and chest, and then stabbed him again in the cheek after he fell to the ground.
He fled on foot but was later found on a dirt road with a knife and an arrow in his possession.
Koo-Oila’s defence lawyer Tim Grau told the court the stabbing took place amid tensions between rival clans in Aurukun that had remained high since Koo-Oila’s uncle was murdered on January 1, 2020, and referred to a government report saying reprisals and extreme violence were common in the community.
“Significant violence between the various clans at the top and bottom parts of Aurukun existed … that unrest has continued to be in existence in the community,” he said.
“In that report it talks about, the issue of payback, that is if someone in your family is offended against by somebody else and you don’t respond in kind or appropriately, then you are seen to be dishonouring your own family.
“I’m not placing it here as a way of excusing behaviour, but in the context of the environment.”
Judge Deborah Richards acknowledged the clan tensions, but said there was no provocation and noted Koo-Oila’s victim had been asleep when the attack began.
“I know you grew up with violence being modelled to you but you are now 34, you have to take responsibility for how you live your life,” she said.
Koo-Oila was given a release date of July 30, 2026, as he had already served 436 days in pre-sentence custody.
Header image: Aurukun Police Station.
The post Booze-fuelled aboriginal jailed over ‘payback’ stabbing amid remote community clan war first appeared on The Noticer.
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