Attempted killer Flynn Donohue sentenced after cutting host's throat at house party

CONTENT WARNING: This article contains graphic content.

A teenager laughed while slicing the throat of a person he’d just met after being invited to a house party, then later launched a brutal attack on a fellow detainee at Canberra’s jail.

Flynn Crowther Donohue, a now-19-year-old of Reid, was arrested last year, and his crimes can be revealed as the ACT Supreme Court published the details of his sentence late last week.

He had been handed about 13-and-a-half years in jail with a non-parole period of six years in August 2024.

On 16 July 2023, he had recently turned 18 when he met a couple who invited him back to their home in Narrabundah to eat, drink alcohol and smoke marijuana together.

Donohue had been relaxed and friendly to his hosts when they met him, but over the course of the evening, he began yelling, acting sexually towards the female host, screaming at the male host and punching holes in the wall of their home.

The couple tried to get him to leave and he eventually agreed. But when the man then sat down to roll a cigarette, Donohue approached him from behind, grabbed his hair and held a knife to his neck before cutting his throat.

“The offender did not say anything and was laughing and smiling,” Justice David Mossop said.

Donohue left while the woman “plugged” the hole in the man’s throat with her fingers as he was bleeding profusely and called an ambulance.

He was taken to the Canberra Hospital where he underwent life-saving emergency surgery, requiring eight units of blood and multiple units of blood products to save his life. He was hospitalised for seven days.

Meanwhile, after Donohue left, he caught a bus to McDonald’s Manuka, where he unsuccessfully tried to buy something twice. He was arrested later that day.

Then, on 13 December 2023, Donohue was a detainee at the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) when he became hostile to another inmate when the latter said, “Thank you, boss”.

The inmate told a corrections officer it had seemed like Donohue wanted to fight him, but when the officer asked Donohue what happened, he said, “There’s nothing in it, chief, don’t worry”.

However, that afternoon, Donohue went into the inmate’s cell and started asking why he had “snitched” on him before he pulled out a sharpened wooden spike.

“I’m not going to let you go,” Donohue said.

He repeatedly stabbed the inmate in the shoulder, arm, neck, head, back and buttocks before the inmate was able to run away, covered in blood.

“There was a trail of blood coming from his cell,” Justice Mossop said.

The inmate suffered 38 stab wounds or abrasions, including six wounds to the head and face, 11 wounds to the neck and a fractured cheekbone.

When corrections officers searched Donohue’s cell, they found it appeared that the spike had been crafted from a broken tennis racquet handle.

In a telephone call from the AMC to his mother, he said he stabbed the inmate because he was a “dog”.

Justice Mossop said Donohue had never been employed, had limited family support and was in a form of public housing before being remanded in custody.

“Since being remanded in custody on the current charges, he has spent periods of time in segregation due to violent behaviours and attitudes,” the judge said.

“For somebody so young, the evidence indicates that the offender has a dangerous propensity to resort to violence.

“That appears to be an ingrained part of his personality structure, having difficulty with impulsivity and emotional regulation, combined with significant levels of fear and anxiety. It is a dangerous combination.”

However, he did take Donohue’s youth into account.

Donohue pleaded guilty to and was convicted of attempted murder and intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm.

He has been in custody since his arrest in July 2023. As his sentence was backdated to account for time served, he can be released from jail in August 2029.

Justice Mossop said he was given a lower-than-usual non-parole period, partly because he was only just old enough to offend and be sentenced as an adult.