Re Mitchell

[2005] QMHC 24

MENTAL HEALTH COURT

CITATION: 

Re Mitchell [2005] QMHC 024

PARTIES:

REFERENCE BY THE DEFENDANT'S LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE IN RESPECT OF MARTIN HUGH MITCHELL

PROCEEDING NO:

0181 of 2003

DELIVERED ON:

11 April 2005

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

11 April 2005

JUDGE:

ASSISTING PSYCHIATRISTS:

Holmes J

Dr J F Wood
Dr J M Lawrence

FINDINGS AND ORDER:

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

2.   The defendant is fit for trial.

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

CATCHWORDS:

MENTAL HEALTH – DECLARATION OR FINDING OF MENTAL ILLNESS OR INCAPACITY – where defendant charged with dangerous operation of a motor vehicle while intoxicated, failure to stop his vehicle and driving under the influence of liquor - where psychiatric opinion indicated that the defendant suffered from a mental illness but differed as to whether the influence of amphetamines and alcohol was the most important contributor to the defendant’s behaviour -  whether the defendant had psychotic symptoms at the time of the alleged offences so as to deprive him of the capacity to understand what he was doing, or the capacity of control, or the capacity to know that he ought not do the act – whether the defendant’s behaviour was attributable to intoxication

Criminal Code 1899 (Qld), s 27

Mental Health Act 2000 (Qld), s 269(1), schedule 2

COUNSEL:

Mr C Eberhardt for the defendant
Mr K Fisher for the Director of Mental Health

Mr R Pointing for the Director of Public Prosections

SOLICITORS:

Nyst Lawyers for the defendant
The Crown Solicitor for the Director of Mental Health
The Director of Public Prosecutions

1. The defendant was charged with dangerous operation of a motor vehicle while intoxicated, failure to stop his vehicle and driving under the influence of liquor, all of those offences allegedly occurring on 12 July 2002.

1. The police brief indicates that the vehicle was observed failing to stop at traffic lights, driving on the wrong side of the road and travelling at excessive speed.  A police pursuit ended with a collision between the defendant's vehicle and another vehicle.  A certificate issued some two hours and 40 minutes later showed the defendant's blood alcohol concentration at 0.173 per cent.

1. Dr Fama gave a report dated 14 July 2003.  It is not necessary to go into the details of it to any great extent.  The defendant did give him an account of drinking on the day of the alleged offences to subdue voices which he was hearing and he also admitted use of amphetamines.  Dr Fama concluded that at the time of the offences, the defendant was affected by both mental illness and intoxication by alcohol and probably also by amphetamines.  The mental illness was in the form of a severe paranoid psychosis of schizophreniform type.  Dr Fama concluded that the defendant would have been deprived of the capacity to know that he ought not do the act because of delusions.  He considered the defendant was fit to plead and to stand trial. 

1. Dr Kingswell reported, on 29 November 2004.  He considered that the defendant's presentation and history were consistent with chronic paranoid schizophrenia.  He said that the defendant might or might not have been deprived of one or other of the relevant capacities at the time of the offence, but there were no contemporaneous records as to mental state. Dr Kingwell's view was that the influence of amphetamines and alcohol were the most important contributors to his behaviour on the date in question.  He regarded the defendant as fit for trial.

1. Mr Eberhardt, for the defendant, says that this is a case in which the Court should conclude that it cannot reach a view in relation to the facts underlying the expert evidence, that is to say, a fact situation within s 269(1) of the Mental Health Act 2000. He points out that the blood alcohol reading, having been taken in excess of two hours after the incident, taken with what he describes as a comment to one of the doctors that the defendant had been drinking while using his motor vehicle, means that one cannot form a clear view that the defendant was intoxicated at the time of the incident.

1. The test for unsoundness is heavily qualified when intoxication comes into play. Schedule 2 of the Mental Health Act 2000 defines unsound mind as:

"The state of mental disease or natural mental infirmity described in the Criminal Code, section 27, but does not include a state of mind resulting, to any extent, from intentional intoxication or stupefaction alone or in combination with some other agent at or about the time of the alleged offence."

1. In the present case, the level of alcohol in the defendant's blood, which was very significant indeed, gives rise to the obvious inference that his behaviour was, to some extent at least, the consequence of at least alcohol intoxication and there is no basis to suppose that that ingestion of alcohol was other than voluntary.  This is a conclusion to be drawn on the balance of probabilities.  It seems to me an almost inevitable conclusion but certainly, as I say, one properly drawn on that standard.

1. In those circumstances, I find that the defendant was not of unsound mind as defined in schedule 2 to the Mental Health Act.  Clearly enough, he is fit for trial.

1. I order that the proceedings against him for the offences be continued according to law.