Ally Langdon breaks down during emotional interview with family of slain paramedic Steven Tougher

Ally Langdon has choked back tears while speaking to the grieving family of a paramedic who was stabbed to death by a stranger in a McDonald’s carpark. 

The A Current Affair host interviewed Steven Tougher’s heartbroken mother, father, sister and wife after a gruelling day in court on Monday.

Mr Tougher was stabbed 55 times while on a break during a shift in Campbelltown, in Sydney’s south-west in the early hours of April 14, 2023.

Jordan James Fineanganofo, 23, admitted stabbing the 29-year-old to death but pleaded not guilty to murder by way of mental health impairment, at the start of what was expected to be a six week-trial in the NSW Supreme Court on Monday.  

During an interview with A Current Affair following the court appearance, Mr Tougher’s father, Jeff, described his son as an incredibly compassionate man. 

‘The saddest part about all of this is if he’d (Fineanganofo) asked my son for help, he would have been showered with compassion because that’s what my boy does,’ Jeff said.

‘He would have got the medical attention that he had, and they would have taken him straight to hospital.

‘He’s paid the ultimate price and so have we.’

Langdon teared up as she struggled to ask Jeff more about Mr Tougher. 

‘I’m sorry – when you talk about that and you know, here is your son a man filled with so much compassion, that’s why he became a paramedic,’ she told the family.

‘For us to be sitting here and talking about this and what’s happened.

‘I’m just, I’m so sorry.

 ‘You need to give each other a hug, I wish I was there to give you one’.

Mr Tougher’s sister, mother and wife – Maddison, who gave birth to their daughter Lily May Stevie just five weeks after the stabbing – immediately broke down and told Langdon, ‘Thank you’.

Jeff replied: ‘Thanks mate. You have to understand how loved he was in the community.

‘I talk about dropping pebbles into a pond and there’s the ripple effect – you don’t know who’s touched by the ripples, Ally, and how many lives my boy helped.

‘Affected people coming to me in the street saying, ‘Your young fella helped me in hospital. He came back after he’d finished work. I was panicking about a large operation and he held my hand as we went into the operating theatre’.

‘This is the boy we’re talking about.’

Mr Tougher’s widow Maddison told Langdon she felt ‘robbed of justice’ after hearing prosecutors had agreed to endorse a mental health verdict if Fineanganofo signed a statement of facts admitting the physical elements of the crime, which was captured on CCTV.

‘I feel robbed for my little girl, I’m just heartbroken,’ she said.

Jeff described Monday’s court session as ‘harrowing’ and ‘really tough’.

‘We only found out last Tuesday that this was the way things were going to proceed,’ he said.

‘Prior to that, we thought that the trial was going to be held over six weeks and was going to be a murder trial.

‘We haven’t really had time to come to terms with that.

‘Just another day where they ripped the band-aid off, you know, and then you hurt all over again.

‘We are damaged, but we are not broken. We look like being the ones that are going to get the sentence of life without Steven, that’s hard to look forward to but we are not broken by any means.’

Justice David Davies adjourned the court until Friday to consider if the mental health defence was made out.

The family remain hopeful that Fineanganofo will face a murder trial.

‘Realistically, we haven’t been robbed of justice yet,’ Jeff said.

He also vowed that his granddaughter will grow up knowing what a hero her dad was and that the family will ramp up their push for better safety for frontline workers.

 ‘All those frontline workers out there, just know that what I am about to embark on, I am doing for you and for Steven Tougher and for the community to feel safe again,’ Jeff added.

‘If we can change the laws or get laws introduced that are called Steven’s Law, then my son will be immortal. 

‘My son will be with us forever. And anything less would be a waste.’

Earlier on Monday, Mr Tougher’s family broke down as the court heard harrowing details that Fineanganofo didn’t say a word as he approached and began stabbing Mr Tougher in a chilling attack lasting close to four minutes.

Fineanganofo hung his head and covered his face as the details of the killing were read to the court.

Crown prosecutor Ken McKay SC said Mr Tougher was unable to get away because he was trapped between the back of the ambulance and his attacker.

Mr Tougher tried to push Fineanganofo away but was unable to, saying, ‘What are you doing? Stop stabbing me mate’.

Despite the efforts of several people to help, Fineanganofo continued to stab Mr Tougher, walking away several times before returning to deliver more wounds as the NSW Ambulance worker lay on the ground, the court heard.

At one stage, Fineanganofo told Mr Tougher, ‘Say you’re sorry to me’.

‘I’m sorry, mate, whatever you think I’ve done,’ a badly injured but still conscious Mr Tougher replied.

Bystander James Arthur ran over in an attempt to help, kicking Fineanganofo and yelling at him to stop.

‘You’re going to kill him,’ Mr Arthur said, the court was told.

Responding to the appeals of another bystander, Fineanganofo was reported either to have said ‘I’m going to jail anyway, I may as well kill him’ or ‘I got to kill him because I got to go to jail’.

Fineanganofo has also pleaded not guilty on mental health grounds to a string of related charges over alleged incidents in nearby suburbs in the days leading up to killing Mr Tougher.

Those incidents included intimidating a woman who was pushing a stroller with a five-month-old child, threatening several men at a service station and swinging a knife at a man during a roadside incident, piercing his jacket but not his skin.

Fineanganofo’s barrister AJ Karim said the position of the defence was largely identical to the prosecution, including that the physical acts of the offences had been committed.

The prosecution and defence engaged psychiatrists who agreed it was available for Fineanganofo to argue he knew what he was doing but did not know it was wrong.

Forensic psychiatrist Kerri Eagle, who was engaged by the prosecution, determined Fineanganofo had a mental health impairment at the time of the offending and displayed signs and symptoms of a psychotic illness consistent with a relapse of schizophrenia.

Dr Eagle took note of witness evidence describing Fineanganofo as looking like ‘he was in a trance, calm, mumbling, grinning and odd’, the court was told.

Mr McKay said Fineanganofo had previously been charged after assaulting a neighbour in 2021, but instead of being prosecuted was involuntarily entered into treatment for mental health issues.

Hospital records stated at that time Fineanganofo had been isolating within his family home for one year with minimal interactions with others, becoming increasingly paranoid of people, including his family.