Murder sentence

A SUPREME Court jury last week found Mount Evelyn man Marc Hamilton guilty of murdering his friend, Montrose man Tim Fleming, during an argument over drugs on 26 July last year.
The 29-year-old bricklayer will face a hearing on 24 November that will decide his penalty.
Hamilton last week told the court he accidentally shot Mr Fleming in the neck with a shotgun while trying to scare him out of the house.
On the night of the murder, Mr Fleming went to Hamilton’s Elizabeth Street house with a bag of speed Hamilton had given him earlier that evening, threw it at him and told him it was “s…”.
Hamilton said he thought Mr Fleming was reaching for a knife, leapt up and punched him in the mouth and told him to get out of the house.
He struck him with a samurai sword to scare him then went into his bedroom “to grab a shotgun”.
He said Mr Fleming started to stand up when he pointed the gun at him, knocked the gun and it discharged.
“If I was so angry I would have attacked him with a Samurai sword … and not went and got the gun to scare him,” he said.
But prosecutor Mark Rochford said witness accounts of Hamilton saying “this one’s for you” prior to the shot proved his intention was to kill or seriously injure Mr Fleming.
“He was angry. He was upset. His anger got the better of him and he acted on it,” he said.