Man jailed for leaving victim quadriplegic

RETIRED cabinet-maker Kenneth Weger was the type of bloke who was quick to offer a visitor a beer.

But he didn't get a chance to be hospitable to former boarder Daniel Charles Hughes, who rendered Mr Weger a quadriplegic by repeatedly stabbing him and leaving him for dead in his Adelaide backyard.

Hughes, 25, was jailed for at least five years in the South Australian Supreme Court on Tuesday.

The chef had pleaded guilty to an aggravated offence of causing serious harm to Mr Weger with intent, after stabbing him six times in the neck in February 2011 at the retiree's Marion home.

Outside court, the 70-year-old victim said Hughes had "ruined two lives" and was "an idiot".

But Mr Weger's daughter Amy stressed that her father still had sympathy for his assailant and worried about the younger man's future.

Now confined to a nursing home, her father had previously been outgoing, lived independently, travelled and would have a drink with anyone.

"If Daniel hadn't stabbed him, I bet the next words would have been 'have a beer'," she said.

"We just hope that Daniel can do his time and come out the other end a better person."

In setting a maximum term of eight years, Justice Michael David said Hughes had consumed an inordinate amount of alcohol and ingested drugs before going to Mr Weger's home looking for accommodation.

Defence barrister Adam Richards said when Mr Weger moved towards Hughes, the young man mistakenly believed he was making a sexual advance.

He impulsively stabbed him using a paring knife he had in his pocket for an innocent purpose - to scrape a bundle of scratchies he had been given for his birthday, Mr Richards said.

In a victim impact statement read to the court on his behalf, Mr Weger said he was now stuck in a nursing home looking at four walls.

"I can't leave when I want and it feels like I have lost my freedom," he said.

"It has completely stuffed up my retirement.

"I have lost everything."

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