Lauren Brown: DV victim jailed for fatally stabbing ‘sugar daddy’ during Joondalup unit fight

A woman who fatally stabbed her abusive partner in their Joondalup apartment after just 142 days together has been jailed for five years and five months. Lauren Vivian Brown pierced James George Sheehy in the chest with a knife during a loud and heated argument on the evening of September 28, 2023. The 29-year-old went on trial in the Supreme Court of WA in March, fighting a charge of murder, arguing she acted in self-defence. Brown said that when she met the victim, he was a fly-in fly-out worker and paid her to have sex but didn’t want her to continue working in the escort business, so handed her $1000 a week to be a “sugar baby-type thing”. Their short relationship soon turned tumultuous and violent. That night, Brown insisted, the 31-year-old rigger attacked her brutally and unrelentingly, knowing she was several weeks pregnant with their son. She bit him on the arm and pepper sprayed him, and claimed she only held up a knife she’d picked up from the kitchen when he pushed her in there as a “kind of” threat. Brown testified that she thrust it out after he stopped her fleeing the apartment by grabbing her hair. She was found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter, with Justice Joseph McGrath saying the verdict showed the jury concluded her response was excessive. Justice McGrath said he could not make a finding about the extent of violence inflicted by Mr Sheehy that night, which Brown may have exaggerated. “But the fact remains that acts of violence were perpetrated on you,” the judge said. “You, in turn, were aggressive. “You inflicted the fatal injury in order to defend yourself but it was not a reasonable response. “You introduced the knife. That was an unnecessary and disproportionate response.” Defence counsel Edward Fitzpatrick said the victim appeared to have had issues with alcohol and jealousy, and there was “some coercive control”. Brown had fallen into a pattern of forming relationships with men who she became dependent on after a very deprived and turbulent upbringing, leaving home and school at age 14. Each of the men had turn abusive, violent and controlling, leaving her with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, Mr Fitzpatrick said. Prosecutor Michael Cvetkovski said Brown had minimised her own violence and exaggerated Mr Sheehy’s assault, which was not supported by photos of her injuries and her behaviour captured by body-worn camera when police arrived. However, Mr Fitzpatrick submitted his client appeared distressed and shocked in the footage, and had suffered “real, genuine injury”, with a boot tread mark clearly visible on her back. Justice McGrath found Brown was remorseful, saying she had sound prospects for rehabilitation, noting her troubled past. Her sister Emma Jane Brown told reporters outside court it was difficult hearing what her sibling had done but she was pleased with the sentence. Brown, who gave birth in custody, must serve three years and five months before she will be eligible for parole. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

Lauren Brown: DV victim jailed for fatally stabbing ‘sugar daddy’ during Joondalup unit fight

Everyday Digital

$8 per week

Everyday Digital & Weekend Papers

$10 per week