A man charged with murder after he reversed over a woman in Perth as she tried to stop him stealing a car insists he didn’t know she was behind the vehicle.
Camera IconA man charged with murder after he reversed over a woman in Perth as she tried to stop him stealing a car insists he didn’t know she was behind the vehicle. Credit: Supplied/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Car thief ‘didn’t know’ he ran over woman

AAPCommunity News

A MAN charged with murder after he reversed over a woman in Perth as she tried to stop him stealing a car insists he didn’t know she was behind the vehicle, but admits he had heard noises coming from that direction.

Micheal Spratt, 26, conceded at his Supreme Court of Western Australia trial on Friday that he stole Marija Karovska’s wallet from inside her family home in Mirrabooka in February last year.

Spratt also admits taking the keys to her son Daniel’s Subaru, but claims he only realised he had them when he found them inside the wallet later, then went back to thieve the car.

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The mother-of-two was looking for her wallet when she went to the front yard to search her Toyota.

The 51-year-old saw someone about to take the Subaru, so she tapped on the side windows, screaming, then stood behind the vehicle and slapped her hand on the boot, the court heard earlier this week.

The commotion drew her daughter Dijana outside and she said she saw the car “crunch into gear” then jolt back slightly, knocking her mother down.

Spratt testified on Friday, saying he heard a noise then drove forward in a bid to see what he’d hit.

“I wasn’t aware that someone was behind the car,” he said.

“I never knew someone was behind.”

Spratt said he had heard someone shouting “but it was behind somewhere” and he didn’t understand as it was in a foreign language.

He then replied “yes” when it was put to him he knew the shouting related to the car being stolen, but added “I never made a connection because I was trying to go”.

Spratt claims he put the car into reverse but it only moved when he lost control of the vehicle because the son had got in via the rear passenger door and put him in a headlock, punching him.

He also claimed he “wasn’t aware” of Ms Karovska when she was alongside the car, nor the daughter when she leaned in yelling “you’ve run over my mum”.

The court has already heard that after Spratt got out of the car and ran off, Ms Karovska was again run over when the son moved the low-slung vehicle forward as his heavy-set mother was trapped underneath.

“There was no way that we could have pulled her out,” the daughter testified.

Lawyers will deliver their closing addresses on Monday.