A Canberra mother whose daughter allegedly stabbed her in the chest with a kitchen knife two weeks after her husband died told police she inflicted the wound herself and the accused was "clean like a baby".
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Mary Ivanisevic, 45, was charged with attempted murder after her elderly mother was found on the floor of her Curtin home still attached to her oxygen machine and with a deep knife wound in 2015.
She pleaded not guilty and has emphatically denied the allegations. Her ACT Supreme Court trial began last week.
Prosecutors will argue Ivanisevic stabbed her mother, then aged 74, before she forced her to record a false confession on her mobile phone, saying she'd caused the wound, as a neighbour came to her aid the afternoon of December 6.
The jury on Monday heard a recording of the frantic triple-0 call made by Ivanisevic as she said her mother had stabbed herself "in her heart" and was bleeding heavily.
When the operator again asked who stabbed her, the accused said: "She did it. Did you do it Mama? Did you do it?
Then, later: "Tell her in Australian who did this."
The defendant was also heard to say she was at "the garage, thank god there's surveillance cameras", and "my brother was supposed to come".
"I want to die too," she told the operator.
In the mobile phone recording from Ivanisevic's phone, most of which was not spoken in English, the accused could be heard to say: "It's OK Mum, just breathe. Just breathe."
Constable Rebecca Wenham recalled speaking with Ivanisevic's mother, Marija, at Canberra Hospital the day after the incident.
"She told me she stabbed herself and her daughter was clean as a baby."
When police later asked in an interview what happened the day of the alleged attack, the elderly woman, with the help of a Croatian interpreter, said: "I was angry and I stabbed myself with a knife."
The woman used a closed fist and made a stabbing motion towards the left side of her chest, the court was told.
She told officers she stabbed herself in the kitchen before she walked several metres into the sitting room and fell to the ground, saying she felt like she was going to die.
The woman didn't know how long the knife had been inside her but there was "lots of blood", she said. "I felt dizzy ... I was just lying on the floor".
Under further questions from police, the woman denied her daughter stabbed her or that she was protecting her from going to jail. She did not remember her daughter asking her to say something into her phone the day of the alleged attack.
Police asked the woman how long she'd wanted to kill herself, to which she replied, "not long".
A mental health registrar said the woman told her she had argued with her daughter about medication when she grabbed the knife and stabbed herself, saying it seemed to be "impulsive".
But in a second discussion, she told the doctor she had been alone when she hurt herself.
"She mentioned that since her husband passed away she hadn't been cared for as well as when he was alive. There were days when she went without a shower and days when she went without food."
The doctor said the woman denied thoughts of self-harm and suicidal ideation in the days after the incident and while she was dealing with many "social issues", she did not believe she suffered a major mental illness or delusional condition.
"She was more fearful of dying, she didn't want to die.
"She wanted us to help her. She didn't feel safe at home. She wanted to be in hospital because she felt safe in hospital."
The jury watched CCTV footage of Ivanisevic sitting behind the wheel of her car after she walked out of a nearby service station at 12.48pm the day of the stabbing before she eventually drove off again at 1.05pm.
The trial continues.
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