A Sydney kitchenhand accused of stabbing a man to death in Neutral Bay is a "caring, nice young adult" who would often bring presents of food and flowers home for his family, his mother has told the NSW Supreme Court.
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Daniel Jack Kelsall is accused of following businessman Morgan Huxley to his flat in the early hours of September 8, 2013 and fatally stabbing him.
The 22-year-old has pleaded not guilty to murder and indecent assault and is standing trial for murder.
On Friday Mr Kelsall's mother, Lynne Kelsall, told the court she had never seen her son act violently or exhibit any tendency to do so.
In a statement, part of which was read to the court, Ms Kelsall described her son in glowing terms.
"Daniel Jack Kelsall is a caring and nice young adult," the statement said.
"He enjoys his job and spends a fair amount of time at home."
Mrs Kelsall told the court it was not unusual for the young man to leave a flower by her bed, or to bring back food from the cooking school where he worked for his family to share.
This included on the morning of the alleged murder, with Mrs Kelsall waking to find a bag full of flavoured licorice on the kitchen bench.
Mrs Kelsall said she and her husband had adopted their son, now aged 22.
He had received "health treatment in New Zealand", where the family lived before coming to Australia, and at one point had been "misdiagnosed" with bipolar disorder.
Ms Kelsall told the court that she washed her son's work clothes every day and had never noticed any blood on them.
"You're not just protecting your son are you Mrs Kelsall?" counsel for the defence, Christopher Watson, asked.
"Absolutely not," she replied.
Earlier, the trial heard that Mr Kelsall told police two weeks after the murder that he had never met his alleged victim and was "horrified" to learn he had been murdered.
The jury was played a video of the police interview the 22-year-old voluntarily undertook on September 24.
Dressed in black, Mr Kelsall told the officer in charge of the case that he had seen a man without shoes, whom he later found out was Morgan Huxley, trying to get money out of a convenience store ATM shortly after he had finished working at the Sydney Cooking School about 1am.
"I saw 'shoe-less guy', that's what I called him, trying to get money out of the machine - I thought it was very funny," he told the officer in charge, Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Dukes.
"Had you ever seen him before?" Detective Dukes asked.
"Not to my knowledge," the 22-year-old replied.
The court has heard that CCTV footage appears to show Mr Kelsall following Mr Huxley through the streets of Neutral Bay.
But he told police during the interview that he had simply been walking in the same direction, and at a certain point had diverted onto a different path.
He said that over the next hour or so he had taken a circuitous route back to the home he shared with his parents, explaining that, despite being cold, he had been "distracted" by items left on the side of the road for an upcoming council clean-up.
He had fallen a asleep soon after hearing police sirens about 3am.
It was not until he had a conversation with a barista named "George" at his local cafe the next day that he discovered "someone" had been murdered, Mr Kelsall claimed.
"I was horrified," Mr Kelsall said.
"What did you think about it?" Detective Jukes asked.
"I had no idea who was murdered, what had happened," he said.
The court has previously heard that in May 2012, Mr Kelsall told a doctor and a psychiatrist that he had "intrusive thoughts" about stabbing someone on the way home from work at night.
He told psychiatrist Matthew Boulton that he had thought about "killing someone else for the thrill of it" and it would "probably be a total random with a knife", the court heard.
But when asked if he wanted to kill someone, Mr Kelsall had replied "absolutely not".
The trial continues.
