Director of Public Prosecutions v Sanderson
[2024] VSC 256
•21 May 2024
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
S ECR 2023 0320
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| SHAUN SANDERSON |
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JUDGE: | HOLLINGWORTH J |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne |
DATE OF HEARING: | 21 May 2024 |
DATE OF JUDGMENT: | 21 May 2024 |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Sanderson |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2024] VSC 256 |
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CRIMINAL LAW – Murder – Attempted murder – Consent mental impairment – Accused found not guilty by reason of mental impairment.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Ms A Moran | Ms A Hogan, Solicitor for Public Prosecutions |
| For Mr Sanderson | Ms A Beech | Gallant Law |
HER HONOUR:
On 8 March 2023, the accused, Shaun Sanderson, killed his brother, Rileigh Sanderson, and attempted to kill his mother, Catherine Sanderson. I will refer to all family members by their first names only, to avoid confusion.
At the time of his death, Rileigh was 29 years old. He was the youngest of four siblings. He had an intellectual disability, autism and ADHD. He lived at home with his parents, Adrian and Catherine.
Shaun was 32 at the time of this offending. He also lived at home with his parents, although he was spending most of the time at the home of his girlfriend, Megan.
In the two or three weeks leading up to the offending, there was a progressive deterioration in Shaun’s mental health.
In early March 2023, Catherine wrote Shaun a letter, in which she expressed concerns about his mental state and asked him to seek help.
At 8am on 6 March 2023, Shaun was at Megan’s house. She reminded him that they were going to go and visit Catherine, because Catherine had said that she really wanted see Shaun. Shaun pretended to go in and out of sleep.
Around 11:30am that morning, Shaun jumped through the glass and blinds on Megan’s bedroom window, and ran from her house wearing only his underwear. He went missing for many hours.
Around 10pm that evening, Shaun was found by a passerby, walking along a creek trail in his boxer shorts. Catherine was called, and she and her daughter went and brought Shaun home, where he stayed the night.
Shaun slept the night of 7 March on the couch at his parents’ home. When Adrian went into the kitchen at 4:40am on the morning of the 8th, to let the dog out, he was surprised to see Shaun already up and in the kitchen.
At 6:30am, Adrian left the house to go to work. He saw Shaun close the wire and main front doors. He thought that was strange, because the main door was never closed at that time, so that Rileigh could wait inside for a taxi to pick him up and take him to his day placement.
Shaun began walking in and out of his bedroom. Catherine went to see what he was doing, and found him trying to open the baseboard of his bedside drawer with a crowbar. When she asked him why he was doing that, he said, “I’ve got money in there.” He flicked a $50 note. Catherine left the room.
When Shaun could not get the money out, he went into the kitchen, looking for something long. He then went to the garage, where he found a long piece of metal that he brought back to his room.
At 8:20am, Catherine was sitting in the study with her back facing the door, when Shaun came in quietly. She did not hear him enter the room. She felt him behind her and thought he was going to give her a cuddle. Instead, he grabbed and pulled the left side of her head, and sliced her neck with a box cutter. Catherine fell to the ground, bumping her head.
She raised her hands to defend herself, and asked what he was doing. Shaun replied, “I’ve gotta do it. You’ve gotta die. You’ve gotta go.” He sliced the other side of her neck with the box cutter. Fortunately, Catherine managed to stand up and prevent any further injury.
Rileigh heard his mother cry for help. He appeared in the hallway outside the study, holding the home phone. Catherine yelled at Rileigh to call the police. Shaun turned his attention to Rileigh.
Catherine dialled triple zero on her mobile phone and tried to close the study door, but Shaun stopped her, causing the phone to fly out of her hand. Rileigh had the home phone up to his ear and was facing Shaun, when Shaun used the box cutter to fatally slice his neck, cutting his jugular vein.
At 8:21am, Catherine and Rileigh left the house to try to get help. There was a hospital 100 metres away from the house. Catherine made it to their front picket fence, before pausing to rest. Rileigh walked out of the driveway and turned towards the hospital.
Rileigh made a video call to his father while he was walking. Adrian saw blood on his neck and asked, “Where’s mum?” and “Where are you?”. Rileigh told his father that he was at home, before he closed his eyes and collapsed in the hospital carpark.
Around 8:30am, emergency services arrived. Catherine was later transported to the Royal Melbourne Hospital for treatment to her neck, chest and hand.
Paramedics found Rileigh in the carpark with bystanders, who were attempting to revive him. Rileigh was saturated in blood, and did not respond to their efforts. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 9:24am.
In the meantime, Shaun had left the house by jumping the back fence and running away. He left wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and socks. He was carrying a backpack and a pair of runners. He later changed his clothes, and discarded some clothes and the backpack under a bridge.
At 2:34pm, a passerby saw Shaun walking towards an Aldi supermarket: she called the police. At 2:41pm, Shaun was arrested and taken into custody. As well as wearing fresh clothes, he had shaved his beard using a trimmer he had taken when he left the house.
Shaun was interviewed by police later that day. He admitted stabbing his mother and brother, but made a number of rather incongruous or nonsensical remarks.
The defence did not dispute that Shaun engaged in the acts constituting the offences of murder and attempted murder. However, they said that he was mentally impaired at the time of offending. The defence relied upon a report by forensic psychiatrist, Dr Andrew Carroll, dated 26 October 2023, in support of the defence of mental impairment.
Based on extensive documentation, as well as his examination of Shaun, Dr Carroll concluded that, at the time of offending, Shaun was floridly psychotic, with symptoms of schizophrenia that included the following:
(a) A delusion whereby he believed that various family members and his partner had been replaced by malevolent entities;
(b) An associated bizarre delusion that his real loved ones were in fact located somewhere in the future, and transmitting messages to him by way of a time machine; and
(c) Passivity symptoms, including a strong sense that compelling instructional thoughts were being put into his mind from his loved ones in the future, telling him that he was in great danger and ought to kill the malevolent entities who had replaced his mother and brother.
The prosecution arranged for Shaun to be assessed by senior forensic registrar, Dr Sharath Thimmareddy. In his report, dated 8 March 2024, Dr Thimmareddy agreed with Dr Carroll that a mental impairment defence was available.
Both psychiatrists had regard to Shaun’s history, which included the following matters.
Shaun is now 33 years old. He did not experience any significant illnesses or trauma as a child, and had a relatively normal childhood. He dropped out of school early in year 12, to begin working in the family business as a labourer. After completing a carpentry apprenticeship, he continued working with his father as a carpenter.
Shaun began using cannabis when he was 16. He started using stimulants such as MDMA (ecstasy) and amphetamines (speed) from the age of 18. Between the ages of 19 and 24, Shaun used methamphetamine (ice). He was then abstinent from all drugs for two years, but relapsed after meeting a friend. He started feeling paranoid soon after resuming using ice. He used ice until he was imprisoned in 2018.
Shaun’s family started noticing that his behaviour was odd when he was in his late teens, but his mental health really started to decline around 2017.
In December 2017, he was admitted twice to mental health units for psychotic episodes. On the first occasion, he was admitted to hospital after engaging in bizarre and self-harming behaviour, including stabbing himself in the arm, in response to auditory hallucinations. After absconding from that unit, he was involuntarily admitted to a different hospital psychiatric unit, from where he absconded a few days later. He was diagnosed with drug-induced psychosis.
Shaun was homeless from May 2018, after a family violence intervention order was taken out against him to protect his mother and grandmother. He had been acting in a psychotic manner, and using ice.
In June 2018, Shaun was incarcerated for the first time on charges of recklessly causing serious injury and assault with a weapon. This occurred when he stabbed someone in a park, in response to paranoid thoughts and voices. By the end of that month, a psychiatrist described him as acutely psychotic, disorganized, paranoid and hallucinating.
Shaun’s mental health deteriorated to such an extent that, between July and November 2018, he was admitted to Thomas Embling Hospital. He presented as paranoid, was experiencing auditory hallucinations and responding to unseen stimuli, and was refusing food and drink.
He was discharged from Thomas Embling Hospital with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, after responding well to oral antipsychotic medication.
In January 2019, Shaun was sentenced for the offence of intentionally causing serious injury and contravening an intervention order.
In early 2019, Shaun was prescribed antipsychotic medications which improved his symptoms. He was reviewed throughout the year by psychiatric nurses, who noted that he denied any psychotic symptoms.
Shaun was released from prison on 2 October 2019. No referral was made for mental health care in the community, and Shaun’s mental issues appeared to improve for a few years. He returned to work as a carpenter, and stopped taking illicit drugs.
Shaun’s mental health started deteriorating about two or three weeks before this offending. In February 2023, Shaun became irritable and disorganized, began refusing food, and did not go to work for a few days. On 1 March 2023, he was pacing around in his family’s backyard and would not communicate with anyone. Megan said that when she spoke to him, it was like talking to a person who was not there.
On 2 March 2023, Shaun spent periods staring at the wall in a dark room, or walking around looking for things. When asked what he was looking for, he could not answer.
Four days later was the incident in which he jumped out the window and stayed out all day wearing only his underpants.
On the day of the offending, he felt like his family members were being impersonated by someone from the future who had taken over their bodies. He heard persistent voices telling him, “You’ve got to get them”. About an hour before the incident, he began to have thoughts about harming those around him and running away. He accessed the money he had saved under his cupboard, and packed a bag with clothes and a beard trimmer as part of his plan to run away. After the assault, he ran from the house and changed his clothes so people could not find him. He only realised that he had hurt his actual family when he was caught by police.
Dr Carroll examined Shaun to determine whether the defence of mental impairment was available. Dr Carroll concluded that Shaun’s symptoms of schizophrenia had the effect that Shaun did not know the nature and quality of his conduct when he attacked his brother and mother, and also was unable to reason, with a moderate degree of sense and composure, about whether his conduct was wrong.
Although Dr Thimmareddy believed that Shaun knew the nature and quality of his actions, he agreed with Dr Carroll that Shaun’s acute psychotic state caused him to be unable to reason, with a moderate degree of sense and composure, about whether his conduct was wrong.
Both experts were of the view that the defence of mental impairment under s 20(1)(b) of the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997 (“the Act”) was available.
On 21 May 2024, a hearing was held to consider the issue of mental impairment. Because both parties agreed that the expert evidence established a defence of mental impairment, s 21(4) of the Act allowed the evidence to be heard by judge alone.
At the conclusion of the hearing on 21 May 2024, I was satisfied that the evidence established the defence of mental impairment under s 20(1)(b) of the Act, in that Shaun was suffering from a mental impairment at the time of committing the offence, the effect of which was that he could not reason with a moderate degree of sense and composure about whether his conduct, as perceived by reasonable people, was wrong.
I directed that a verdict of not guilty because of mental impairment be recorded, and declared Shaun liable to supervision under Part 5 of the Act. Shaun was remanded in custody in prison, pending the preparation of the further report required by s 41(1) of the Act, and the provision of a certificate of available services under s 47 of the Act.
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