NSW:Woman says she saw friend killed

AAP General News (Australia)
12-12-2011
NSW:Woman says she saw friend killed

By Margaret Scheikowski

SYDNEY, Dec 12 AAP - A woman injected ice, drank alcohol and played poker machines
with her lover after seeing him choke, drown and sexually defile her friend, a judge has
been told.

Debbra Hogden told police she had feared her lover, who said "she would be next", so
she did exactly what she was told.

Giving evidence in the NSW Supreme Court on Monday, Ms Hogden said she constantly questioned
herself about why she waited two months before going to police.

"I could never have stopped what happened to Kristi (McDougall)," she said at her sentencing
hearing.

"But I questioned why I can't have said, or come forward sooner."

Hogden, 43, has pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact of the murder of
Ms McDougall, a 31-year-old Carlingford mother reported missing on June 21 last year.

Her torso was found at Doonside in Sydney's west on August 11 but no other body parts
have been located.

According to a tendered statement of facts, Hogden went to police on August 18, saying
she had witnessed the killing and giving them the name of the man she said was responsible.

In her evidence she said she was not his girlfriend and their relationship was "purely
sexual", starting after her boyfriend was jailed for bashing her.

Days after Ms McDougall went missing, Hogden was questioned by police and lied in an
attempt to provide a false alibi - one of the six acts she has admitted to in the accessory
charge.

But she later told police Ms McDougall said she was supplying the drug ice to the man
on June 19 and both women went to his unit.

She said the man came up from behind Ms McDougall "and choked her with a thin rope
by pulling it tightly around her neck".

Hogden said she tried to escape but the door was deadlocked, so she kicked him so he
would release his grip.

"She fought, she fought, she fought so well and I couldn't help her," she said.

During the attack, a neighbour came to the door, and on the man's instructions, Hogden
said she told him: "We're having some fun. I've got him tied up to the bed".

Hogden told police she saw the man hold her friend's head and force it "into a small
plastic garbage bin which had been filled with water".

Hogden told police the man then sexually defiled Ms McDougall.

They later went to a pub, drank alcohol and played poker machines, knowing they would
be captured on CCTV which could give them a potential alibi.

Hogden said they both also used ice taken from the dead woman's handbag.

She told police he later told her he dismembered the body.

Her barrister Richard Button SC submitted the judge could impose a suspended sentence
but Keith Alder for the crown said this would be "manifestly inadequate".

Mr Button cited her help to authorities and her undertaking to give evidence against
her former lover.

"She is a sad, lonely, damaged person and alcohol and drugs have been an attempt at
self-medication," he said.

Mr Alder referred to the two month period before Hogden went to police, noting she
testified she ceased contact with the man in early July.

Justice David Davies adjourned sentencing to March 9.

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KEYWORD: LEGAL: HOGDEN WRAP

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