A man who attacked his fellow students with a baseball bat during a statistics tutorial at a Canberra university last year “looked really out of it”, a court has heard.
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A student has recounted that Alex Ophel, 19, was “smiling with his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth” as he was restrained after assaulting several students at the Australian National University on a Friday morning in August last year.
Mr Ophel is on trial in the ACT Supreme Court charged with five counts of attempted murder, to which he has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental impairment.
Natasha Robinson, who was in the tutorial, told the court that Ophel had arrived late to class, and about 10 minutes later had stood up and without warning began hitting students on the head with a metal baseball bat.
The court was played triple-0 recordings of both Ms Robinson and fellow student Jean-Luc Gallo relaying to the emergency operator what was happening.
Screams could be heard in the background, and Ms Robinson told the operator that Mr Ophel had “just randomly decided to hit people with a baseball bat”.
She could be heard asking someone to help restrain Mr Ophel, and telling operator she had never spoken to him before.
“He looked a little bit out of it while they were trying to contain him by the door,” she said when the operator asked what condition the attacker was in.
She saw him go to the tutor at the front of the class and begin hitting her with such force that she could hear the blows from the back of the classroom.
She said other students restrained Mr Ophel while she tried to stem the blood coming from her friend’s head.
The friend, Pride Ju, suffered a head fracture and concussion as a result of the assault and lost the tip of his finger while trying to protect his head from the blows.
Mr Gallo, was near the front of the classroom when the attacks began and didn’t realise what was happening until one of the female students began screaming.
He saw Mr Ophel standing over her with the baseball bat, and move to another student and start hitting her as well with the bat.
He then began attacking the tutor, backing her into a corner and swinging the bat at her head “like he was swinging at a ball”.
“I stood up and said, 'What are you doing, mate?' and he came to me and hit a glancing blow on the side of my head,” Mr Gallo said.
“I just sort of tackled him, bear-hugged him or whatever ... with both my arms around his chest and his arms pinned down.”
Meanwhile, the tutor had called triple-0 and was having difficulty communicating what was happening.
She passed the phone to Mr Gallo, who momentarily let go of one of Ophel’s arms.
Ophel then “grabbed a handful of Holly’s [the tutor’s] hair and started yanking it around, and he started struggling again”, Mr Gallo said.
Several other students gave evidence on Monday, recounting how the attack happened suddenly, creating a chaotic scene.
The students also had difficulty getting out of the room as the door required a student or staff pass to be swiped before it would open, and Mr Ophel had at one stage been blocking the door.
The trial continues.
