Re Hutton

[2005] QMHC 46

MENTAL HEALTH COURT

CITATION:

Re Hutton [2005] MHC 46

PARTIES:

REFERENCE BY THE DEFENDANT’S LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE IN RESPECT OF TREVOR PAUL HUTTON

PROCEEDING NO:

No 0002 of 2005

DELIVERED ON:

2 December 2005

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

2 December 2005

JUDGE:

ASSISTING PSYCHIATRISTS:

Holmes J

Dr J F Wood
Dr J M Lawrence

FINDINGS AND ORDER:

1.   The defendant was of not of unsound mind as defined in the Mental Health Act 2000 (Qld), Schedule 2, at the time of the alleged offences.

2.   The defendant is fit for trial.

3.   The proceedings for all of the alleged offences are to continue according to law.

CATCHWORDS:

MENTAL HEALTH – DECLARATION OR FINDING OF MENTAL ILLNESS OR INCAPACITY – where defendant charged with three counts of disqualified driving, stealing, and failing to appear – where evidence that the defendant has schizophrenia – whether defendant was of unsound mind at the time of the alleged offences – whether defendant fit for trial

Mental Health Act 2000 (Qld), Schedule 2

COUNSEL:

C Heaton for the defendant
W Isdale for the Director of Mental Health

C Kelly for the Director of Public Prosecutions

SOLICITORS:

Legal Aid Queensland for the defendant
The Crown Solicitor for the Director of Mental Health

The Director of Public Prosecutions

1. HOLMES J: Mr Hutton is charged with disqualified driving on 24 June 2004, 26 June 2004 and 14 July 2004, with stealing on 14 July 2004 and failing to appear on 15 September 2004.

1. In relation to those alleged offences some information appears from the police QP9 sheets.  On 24 June 2004 he was pulled over.  He told the police he was aware he was on a 15 month disqualification, but he was going to a bottle shop to buy alcohol.  On 26 June he told them that he knew he should not be driving but he was going to pick up his girlfriend whom he perceived at risk of harm.  On 14 July he did not offer any specific excuse but said that he knew he was disqualified from driving.  The stealing offence on 14 July 2004, as it is alleged, was that he took a jacket, skirt and camisole from a display rack at the front of a shop in a shopping centre.  The clothes, it is said, were found in his car the next day.  The failing to appear on 15 September was in relation to disqualified driving.  He was arrested subsequently when he appeared in Court in relation to another charge.

1. Dr Katz has expressed the view that he was of unsound mind at the time of committing the offences.  Unfortunately though, he deals with unsoundness both in his report and in his evidence here in very general terms rather than by reference to the particular allegations of offending.  Essentially the basis for his conclusions as he outlined in his evidence is the mental state of Mr Hutton at the time he saw him, that is to say his disturbed thinking, and the fact of his longstanding schizophrenia.  And I should say, there is no dispute at all that Mr Hutton suffers from a mental illness, schizophrenia.

1. Dr Katz suggested that he was deprived of the capacities of control and to understand what he was doing.  That view is rather hard to reconcile with the driving offences and the subsequent explanations to the police.  In any event, the rather sweeping nature of Dr Katz's views and his failure, I think, to address each of the offences and the likely mental state of Mr Hutton at each time make it difficult to accept his evidence in preference to that of Dr Morris.

1. Dr Morris, in contrast, has addressed each of the offences.  In his view, on the account Mr Hutton gave him, it would appear that he was quite aware of what he was doing at the times in question.  Dr Morris says that Mr Hutton does suffer from delusions of a grandiose type, but in relation to these particular episodes of offending he does not think that they are manifestations of grandiose delusions, but rather his explanations simply amount to offering justifications for the alleged offending.  I certainly find Dr Morris the more compelling of the two psychiatrists in terms of their evidence and I accept his opinion as to unsoundness. 

1. In relation to fitness for trial, Dr Morris has seen Mr Hutton fairly recently, on 19 October 2005.  He clearly enough went through the various aspects of the Court proceeding with Mr Hutton and found him fit.  Mr Heaton, for Mr Hutton, pointed out that the explanations that Mr Hutton proposed to advance to support pleas of not guilty were not rational.  They were, that his driving offences could be explained by his needing to drive in the emergency situations which were more important than the fact of disqualified driving, and that he did not steal the piece of clothing from the shop because he thought he had implicit approval to take it since he was not under observation at the time.

1. I think there are two approaches that can be taken to those explanations.  One is that they are the product of delusional thinking, but the other is that they are simply not very convincing attempts to explain away misbehaviour.  Dr Morris took the latter view and since this is an area of his expertise and he thinks this is not reflective of delusional thinking or incapacity, that is the view I accept.  I should say that both Dr Wood and Dr Lawrence support acceptance of Dr Morris's views in relation to both unsoundness and unfitness and I am influenced by that.

1. I find, therefore, that Mr Hutton was not of unsound mind at the time of any of the alleged offences.  I find also that he is fit for trial.  All matters should proceed according to law.