A new, unusual charge has been laid over the death of a woman in Shepparton last year.
Adam Winmar, 29, formerly of Shepparton and now of the Melbourne suburb of Collingwood, was charged with negligent manslaughter on Monday, February 5.
The charge follows an incident at a property on McCubbin Dve in Shepparton on April 1, 2023, where Mr Winmar’s 27-year-old partner, Kiara Ferguson, died from a gunshot wound.
Mr Winmar had earlier been charged with possessing a firearm while a prohibited person.
That charge is already before the Shepparton Magistrates’ Court as a summary jurisdiction application.
He appeared in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday, February 5, for a filing hearing for the new charge.
He also successfully applied for bail.
In the bail application, Homicide Squad Detective Acting Sergeant Michael Cashman told the court Mr Winmar called 000 at 6.12pm on April 1 last year, reporting that his partner had “accidentally shot herself”.
Det Act Sgt Cashman said the homemade gun had been handed to Ms Ferguson by one of her young children and she had thrown it at Mr Winmar while he was sitting on the toilet.
The gun had dropped to the ground and discharged and Ms Ferguson was shot in the cheek and died from the wound, Det Act Sgt Cashman said.
He told the court that police testing had discovered that the spring-loaded single shot handgun made out of metal pipe had “a design fault” that made it discharge if dropped on a hard surface.
The officer said the negligent manslaughter charge came about because Mr Winmar “had not secured the illegally possessed illegal gun”, which “was within reach of” his young daughter.
The court heard Mr Winmar had drunk beer and smoked a small amount of methamphetamine earlier that day.
The court was also told that Mr Winmar was seen with a gun the day before Ms Ferguson’s death, and that on Snapchat earlier that day he was depicted “mimicking firing a gun out of a vehicle” while Ms Ferguson and the children were also in the car.
Mr Winmar’s defence counsel told the court it was not disputed that there was a loaded firearm there that was thrown at Mr Winmar by Ms Ferguson and that it discharged.
However, he said Mr Winmar had the homemade gun because of “stupidity” and “not for nefarious reasons”.
The defence counsel said the fact that there were already proceedings occurring in the Shepparton Magistrates’ Court on the lesser charge “could raise serious issues about the future conduct of the matter” and that if Community Corrections had interviewed him in those court proceedings “it may compromise his defence”.
He also told the court that his client had been on bail for the 10 months since the incident, was complying with his bail conditions, and had also participated in a Place for Change program for Aboriginal men.
In bailing Mr Winmar, magistrate Andrew McKenna said the charge of negligent manslaughter was “an unusual offence” that did not have “any real benchmarks in terms of penalties”.
Mr Winmar’s bail conditions include that he continue to report to police three times a week, live in Collingwood and not contact any prosecution witnesses.
He will next appear in court in April.