Re Gunn
[2007] QMHC 27
•9 November 2007
SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND
CITATION:
Re Gunn [2007] QMHC 027
PARTIES:
REFERENCE BY THE DIRECTOR OF MENTAL HEALTH IN RESPECT OF ANDREW LOGAN GUNN
PROCEEDING:
Proceeding Number 0077 of 2007
DELIVERED ON:
9 November 2007
DELIVERED AT:
Brisbane
HEARING DATE:
5 November 2007
JUDGE:
Philippides J
ASSISTING PSYCHIATRISTS:
Dr J M Lawrence
Dr F T Varghese
FINDINGS AND ORDER:
1. In regard to the alleged offence of arson:
a. the defendant was of unsound mind as described in Schedule 2 of the Mental Health Act 2000 (Qld) at the time of the alleged offence; and
b. the defendant be detained in the medium secure unit of the Prince Charles Hospital and District Authorised Mental Health Service.
2. In regard to the alleged offence of possession of a drug utensil:
a. the defendant was not of unsound mind as described in Schedule 2 of the Mental Health Act2000 (Qld) at the time of the alleged offence;
b. the defendant is fit for trial;
c. the proceedings are to continue according to law;
d. pursuant to s 273(1)(b) of the Mental Health Act2000 (Qld) the defendant be detained in the Prince Charles Hospital and District Authorised Mental Health Service until he is granted bail under the Bail Act 1980 (Qld), or he is brought before a court for continuing the proceedings.
CATCHWORDS:
MENTAL HEALTH – DECLARATION OR FINDING OF MENTAL ILLNESS OR INCAPACITY – where the defendant is charged with one count of arson and one summary charge of possession of a drug utensil – where psychiatric opinion indicated the defendant was suffering from a psychotic condition at the time of the alleged offence of arson – where the defendant reported that he had consumed alcohol prior to the time of alleged offence of arson – whether the defendant was deprived of the capacity to know that he ought not to do the act – whether intoxication contributed to that deprivation – whether the defendant was of unsound mind as defined by Schedule 2 of the Mental Health Act 2000 (Qld) at the time of the alleged offences
Bail Act 1980 (Qld)
Mental Health Act 2000 (Qld), Schedule 2
COUNSEL:
C Morgan for the defendant
J Tate for the Director of Mental Health
S Vasta for The Director of Public ProsecutionsSOLICITORS:
Legal Aid Queensland for the defendant
Crown Law for the Director of Mental Health
The Director of Public Prosecutions (Qld)
J: PHILIPPIDES The defendant, Andrew Gunn, a 26 year old man, is charged with one count of arson on 1 February 2007 and one summary charge of possession of a drug utensil on 24 January 2007. The defendant does not dispute the charges. The defendant’s mental condition at the time of the alleged offence has been referred to this court.
The circumstances of the alleged arson
It is alleged that on 31 January 2007, the defendant made six Molotov cocktails by filling glass bottles with a mixture of petrol and polystyrene and using a torn up singlet top to make wicks. In the early hours of the following day, he walked to the complainant’s unit in West End, whereupon he lit two of the Molotov cocktails with a lighter and threw them through the open kitchen window into the unit, causing the bottles to smash and the contents to catch fire. The defendant then allegedly threw the remaining Molotov cocktails through the window causing damage to the unit. The residents inside were unharmed. The defendant left the scene, returning to his home, where he was located and arrested by police.
The defendant participated in an interview with police on 1 February 2007 some four hours after the acts in question. He told police that one of the men living in the unit had been “harassing him since he was younger”, making “smart comments” and “phoney allegations” about him. He told police that on the night in question:
“it just came to the crunch … things were getting real bad up there … there was some girl up there screaming and stuff cos they were raping her … a few girls have been raped up there … they probably dump their bodies somewhere … the fact of the matter is they are trying to kill my family … they obviously got psychotic problems … I had to do this to get them … to the station to confess they got heaps of charges on them”.
Following his arrest for the offences the subject of this reference, the defendant was detained to Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre and was found to be floridly psychotic, experiencing auditory hallucinations and delusional beliefs similar to those expressed in the police interview. He told Dr Heffernan who assessed the defendant upon his arrival at Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre, that his neighbour was “tormenting women” and reported that he had seen “8 dead females being put into boot of car” and that he told police that he believed that he had to take the matter into his own hands.
Due to his persistent psychotic features, the defendant was transferred to the High Security Inpatient Service at The Park Centre for Mental Health (“The Park”) on 26 February 2007, where he was seen by Dr Aboud, who continues to be his treating psychiatrist. The defendant repeated the delusional beliefs he had previously reported, telling Dr Aboud that he had long suspected that his neighbours had intended to rape and possibly kill females and that two days prior to the alleged offence he had heard them talking about a plan to rape his own girlfriend. He reported his belief that they had in fact raped his girlfriend approximately one year ago and that this was in part a “revenge attack”. According to Dr Aboud the defendant also volunteered other motivations for committing the alleged offence; that his neighbours owed him money, that they had stolen cocaine from him and that they had spread rumours that he treated his girlfriend badly.
To Dr Fama, who assessed him on 2 August 2007, the defendant said that he had heard “chicks screaming” from the complainant’s unit and that there was “a plot to ‘get’ his girlfriend”. He said that for several months he had been hearing voices.
Evidence of alcohol and drug use
In his interview with police, the defendant reported that he had been drinking with another person prior to the alleged offence. He gave varying accounts as to the extent of his alcohol consumption. When detained at Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre, the defendant told an assessing psychologist that he had consumed a cask of wine, two bottles of beer and two bourbons on the night prior to his arrest. He told Dr Heffernan, who assessed him upon reception at Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre, that he had consumed “5 litres of wine and a couple of beers and a few cones”. The defendant told Dr Aboud that at the time of the alleged offence, he was “really out of it” and “can’t remember much”. A urine drug analysis from 5 February 2007 tested positive for cannabinoids.
Forensic/psychiatric history
The defendant was returned to Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre on 26 March 2007 after treatment. Prior to his admission to The Park, the defendant had undergone six previous admissions to psychiatric hospitals at the Gold Coast, Robina and the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, dating back to 2002. On these occasions, he was diagnosed as suffering a schizophrenic illness. An additional diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder was made in relation to these admissions. He was previously on an involuntary treatment order, which had been revoked on the basis of his settled mental state. He has been diagnosed with drug induced psychoses on a number of occasions. He is currently prescribed Olanzapine 10mg twice daily.
The defendant has a history of alcohol and drug abuse. He reported to Dr Fama regular consumption of 10 litres of wine a day, five days a week and told Dr Aboud that he drinks some six to 12 “long necks” as well as spirits on at least “every second day”. He also admitted to longstanding cocaine, heroin, amphetamine, ecstasy and marijuana abuse dating back to his early adolescence. He reported to Dr Fama snorting one gram of cocaine every two days or so and using three grams of marijuana a week, as well as “very occasional” use of speed.
Clinical evidence
Dr Fama diagnosed the defendant as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, characterised by auditory hallucinations, persecutory beliefs and disorganised thinking, harmful use of alcohol and multiple drug dependence. Dr Aboud largely agreed with this assessment, but also considered the defendant suffers from antisocial personality disorder.
The area of disagreement concerned whether the defendant was at the relevant time suffering from a deprivation of capacity resulting from a disease of the mind and whether intoxication contributed to any extent to that deprivation.
Dr Aboud’s evidence
When first seen by Dr Aboud in the High Secure Unit of The Park, the defendant was perplexed, fatuous, exhibiting thought blocking, preoccupied and distractible, and clearly delusional. He volunteered his belief system in relation to his neighbours’ malign intent towards females and specifically that they had raped and would again rape his girlfriend, which Dr Aboud considered to be an intense belief system. The defendant settled in a week, in the sense that he was no longer perplexed, distractible, or volunteering any delusional beliefs, although he continued to report auditory hallucinations, which Dr Aboud considered more likely to be pseudo-hallucinations. Dr Aboud noted however that the defendant has never been free of psychotic symptoms.
While Dr Aboud was of the view that at the relevant time, the defendant was psychotic, he did not consider that there was any deprivation of the defendant’s capacities. The defendant understood his actions and was able to control them.
As to the capacity to know he ought not to do the acts, Dr Aboud questioned whether, given that the defendant’s moral judgment was highly compromised due to his antisocial disposition in the context of an antisocial personality disorder, the defendant could be said to be deprived of the relevant capacity because of his mental disease. The matter of concern to him was that the defendant’s conduct may not have been out of character, noting some personality traits in relation to psychopathy and his history of conduct disorder, and varying accounts as to motivation, including that he wanted revenge against his neighbours. While Dr Aboud accepted that there was a clear delusional or psychotic element to the defendant’s motivation, he noted that the defendant described over many interviews with him other motivating factors. Moreover, it was his view that there was impairment rather than a deprivation of the defendant’s capacity to know that he ought not to do the act.
Dr Aboud was also of the opinion that the defendant’s schizophrenic illness was complicated by substance abuse, which is likely to have acted as a major destabilising factor in respect of his mental state over the past years. Dr Aboud opined that the defendant’s psychotic disturbance on the day in question was probably associated with illicit substance misuse. In his report, Dr Aboud expressed the view that the defendant was intentionally intoxicated at the material time, primarily because of alcohol consumption and also because of marijuana consumption. However, in giving oral evidence, Dr Aboud accepted that the issue of the extent of alcohol consumption was speculative. He also accepted that no inference could be drawn from the urine test that the defendant was intoxicated with cannabis at the relevant time. Moreover, he conceded that the acts in question involved a fair degree of planning, preparation and sophistication and that while it was possible that an intoxicated person could have carried them out, it was not probable.
Dr Fama’s evidence
Dr Fama’s evidence was that at the relevant time there were multiple powerful delusions operating which were of themselves sufficient to deprive the defendant of the capacity to know that he ought not to do the act. He described the defendant’s mental state at the time as frighteningly psychotic.
Dr Fama’s evidence was that when he saw him some months after the events in question, the defendant was still psychotic with the delusional beliefs persisting, although not as prominent (the defendant “still clings to some diminished, residual beliefs about having been under threat”). Dr Fama concluded that in light of the persistence of paranoid features over several months in custody, and the presence of affective change of a hebephrenic type, the appropriate diagnosis at the material time was one of paranoid schizophrenia. However, he did not exclude the possibility that drugs and alcohol, especially cocaine and amphetamines, may have precipitated and aggravated the defendant’s schizophrenic process over the years.
Dr Fama considered that at the relevant time the defendant’s psychosis was of such severity as to deprive him of the capacity to know that he ought not to do the acts in question. Dr Fama observed that although the defendant told police that he knew he had done the wrong thing, the defendant only saw his actions as having been wrong in the sense that they were unwise, that is, they got him into jail. Dr Fama noted the varying motivations reported by the defendant, but considered that the most dependable accounts of the defendant’s mental state at the relevant time must be regarded as the first versions given; that is to the police (some four hours after the acts in question) and to Dr Heffernan (some six days later). In Dr Fama’s view, the delusions described to the police and Dr Heffernan were very powerful and strongly held. Dr Fama concluded that the defendant’s “purpose arose from his beliefs of grave evil and his supposed remedy, a grandiose and violent solution which he saw as the only and correct response.”
As regards the issue of intoxication, Dr Fama accepted that the defendant had been drinking prior to the acts in question, but considered the defendant to be an unreliable reporter as to the extent of his alcohol consumption. He tended to the view that the defendant’s degree of intoxication would have been moderate at most, despite the defendant’s reported alcohol intake. In forming that view, Dr Fama noted that, when asked in the police interview, the defendant stated that he was not intoxicated, that the police were evidently not concerned in that regard as they proceeded to conduct an extensive interview, that the defendant was apparently able to find his way around West End and over the William Jolly Bridge, and that there was no evidence of his being observed to be staggeringly drunk, as one would have expected given his report of the amount he had consumed. In addition, the extent of the reported consumption was inconsistent with the defendant being able to perform the fairly complex, protracted and purposeful acts in question.
Dr Fama accepted that the defendant’s alcohol consumption may have acted as a disinhibiting factor, but considered that in that case it would only have affected the capacity to control and not the capacity to know that he ought not to do the acts. He concluded that the defendant’s mental disease was sufficient in itself to deprive him of at least the capacity to know that he ought not to do the act, without any contribution from intoxication. In this regard he observed that the defendant’s fixed delusional beliefs had continued after the events in question and had persisted even after a period of detention free from alcohol.
Opinions of the assisting psychiatrists
Dr Lawrence favoured the position of Dr Aboud in relation to the question of unsoundness of mind. She preferred the view that the defendant’s conduct was more consistent with his personality disorder than with a significantly psychotically disturbed individual. But in addition, she preferred Dr Aboud’s opinion as to the role of intoxication. Dr Lawrence saw intoxication as contributing to the defendant’s mental condition at the relevant time and as being the explanation as to why the defendant acted on his delusions, whereas he had not done so in the past in the same manner.
Dr Varghese, on the other hand, agreed with the opinion of Dr Fama. He noted that there was no dispute that the defendant was floridly psychotic at the time of the events in question. Taking into account the defendant’s mental state at the time of interview with the police and when seen by Dr Aboud and his ongoing description of being psychotic as described by both Dr Aboud and Dr Fama, Dr Varghese was drawn to the conclusion that the events in question were probably driven by psychotic phenomena in the form of delusions and hallucinations with respect to the defendant’s neighbours, which deprived him of the capacity to know that he ought not to do the act.
Dr Varghese agreed with Dr Fama in discounting intoxication as contributing to any extent to the deprivation of capacity. He did not consider that the defendant’s alcohol consumption would have affected the capacity to know he ought not to do the act, although he accepted that it would certainly have affected control. In his view, the deprivation of the capacity to know that he ought not to do the act was due to the defendant’s delusional ideation accompanied by auditory hallucinations, which were of such a degree of severity that his moral judgment as to the wrongness of his conduct was absent.
Conclusion
I am satisfied that at the time of the alleged arson the defendant was of unsound mind in that he was deprived of the capacity to know that he ought not to do the act by reason of a disease of the mind. I prefer the opinions stated by Dr Fama, with which Dr Varghese agreed, that the deprivation of the relevant capacity arose from the defendant’s disease of the mind, rather than from his personality disorder. In reaching that conclusion, I am influenced by the clinical evidence as to the powerful nature of the delusional beliefs.
While I accept that the defendant had been drinking prior to the events in question, I do not consider the defendant to be a reliable historian as to his intake. The extent of alcohol consumed remains speculative. The defendant indicated to police that he was not intoxicated and I note that the police’s concern on that matter was not such as to preclude them conducting an interview. And as Dr Fama pointed out, the elaborate and planned conduct was inconsistent with the defendant’s self report as to his alcohol consumption. But in any event, even if the defendant’s alcohol consumption resulted in his being intoxicated at the relevant time, I am not persuaded that intoxication featured to any extent in the deprivation of the defendant’s capacity to know that he ought not to commit arson, given the severity of the defendant’s delusions.
The expert opinion is unanimous that, given the gravity of the offending, the defendant’s treatment needs and the need to protect the community, a forensic order is warranted. I order that the defendant be detained in the medium secure unit of the Prince Charles Hospital and District Authorised Mental Health Service. The clinical evidence is to the unanimous effect that no limited community treatment should be approved at this stage. Accordingly, none is approved.
Possession of a drug utensil charge
As regards the charge of possession of a drug utensil, there is no support on the material before the court for a mental health defence. I find that the defendant was not of unsound mind at the time of the alleged offence. The evidence indicates that the defendant is fit for trial. The proceedings in relation to that charge will continue according to law.
Orders
In regard to the alleged offence of arson, the defendant was of unsound mind as described in Schedule 2 of the Mental Health Act 2000 (Qld) at the time of the alleged offence. I order that the defendant be detained in the medium secure unit of the Prince Charles Hospital and District Authorised Mental Health Service.
In regard to the alleged offence of possession of a drug utensil, the defendant was not of unsound mind as described in Schedule 2 of the Mental Health Act2000 (Qld) at the time of the alleged offence. The defendant is fit for trial. The proceedings are to continue according to law. Pursuant to s 273(1)(b) of the Mental Health Act2000 (Qld) I order that the defendant be detained in the Prince Charles Hospital and District Authorised Mental Health Service until he is granted bail under the Bail Act 1980 (Qld), or he is brought before a court for continuing the proceedings
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