A grandmother who allegedly stabbed her son’s partner and a 10-year-old boy in a roadside rampage may have been suffering side effects from using the weight loss drug Ozempic, a court has heard.
Julie Ann Williams wept when her bail application was refused in Wollongong Local Court after a magistrate was told about the possibility she had experienced an Ozempic-induced rage.
Until her arrest, Williams, 60, had been living with her builder son Andrew Williams and his girlfriend Kellie Parkes in a house south of Sydney at Horsley.
Ms Parkes had been driving two boys aged 10 and three to judo on the evening of June 11 when Williams, who was in another vehicle, allegedly forced her to pull over on West Dapto Road at Wongawilli.
Williams allegedly got out of her car and pulled out a knife, then leaned through the front passenger window of Ms Parkes’s car and stabbed the 10-year-old boy in the neck.
When 27-year-old Ms Parkes got out of her vehicle, Williams allegedly stabbed her in the abdomen.
Ms Parkes and the boy suffered serious wounds, while the three-year-old boy who was also in Ms Parkes’s car escaped the incident unharmed.
The alleged attack took place just a three-minute drive from where Williams, her son and Ms Parkes lived together.
Police arrested Williams at the Horsley house about 6.30pm on June 11 and charged her with two counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. She has been in custody since then.
Williams made a bail application last Thursday when lawyer Laura Fennell submitted her client had suffered a major depressive disorder for 25 years and that condition was ‘exacerbated by family matters’.
‘What occurred that day suggests something completely out of character,’ Ms Fennell told magistrate Geraldine Beattie, according to the ABC.
Ms Beattie described the prosecution case against Williams, who had no criminal record, as ‘overwhelming’.
Ms Fennell said Williams had been using Ozempic at the time of the stabbings and her behaviour might be attributable to ‘the side effects of the medication she was taking’.
The court heard a forensic psychiatrist had assessed Williams and determined her mental health problems could have made her ‘more vulnerable to the side effects of the medication’.
Ms Beattie said: ‘The expert doctor suggests the medication may have had a toxic effect on her metabolism and made her susceptible to violent behaviour.’
‘They say the medication is commonly associated with some behaviours like suicide and erraticism.’
Ms Beattie also noted the psychiatrist had not referred to studies linking Ozempic to violence.
‘The Crown will need to get their own expert on this and that will take time,’ Ms Beattie said.
Ms Beattie said Williams had told police in an electronically recorded interview she had ‘no idea’ why she allegedly committed the stabbings and ‘something came over her to do it’.
Ms Parkes had spent four days in hospital and the 10-year-old boy was treated for two days.
Ms Fennell proposed a set of strict bail conditions for Williams which included her staying away from her relatives.
Williams wept when Ms Beattie found she might pose a risk to the community due to the nature of her alleged offending and refused bail.
If Williams is granted bail in future an interim apprehended violence order in place to protect Ms Parkes stipulates she cannot go within 500m of the family home.
Neighbours said Williams lived in a flat behind the Horsley house, while her son lived in the front and Ms Parkes spent most of her nights there.
‘[Ms Parkes] is pretty much here all the time,’ one neighbour told the Daily Mail.
‘I always hear the son and his mum arguing a lot. Not really the girlfriend and the mum.’
Another neighbour said of Ms Parkes: ‘She pretty much lives here.’
Of Williams, that neighbour said, ‘I didn’t have much to do with her. You wouldn’t pick it.’
After the stabbings, Detective Chief Inspector Brad Ainsworth said the three-year-old boy was ‘not injured, not touched and not approached’.
Detective Chief Inspector Ainsworth thanked members of the public who had rushed to help Ms Parkes and the boy and said it was not clear what sparked the alleged attack.
Williams will return to court on October 22.