Re TW

[2005] QMHC 6

MENTAL HEALTH COURT

CITATION: 

Re TW [2005] QMHC 006

PARTIES:

REFERENCE BY THE DIRECTOR OF MENTAL HEALTH IN RESPECT OF TW

PROCEEDING NO:

0090 of 2004

DELIVERED ON:

19 April 2005

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

19 April 2005

JUDGE:

ASSISTING PSYCHIATRISTS:

Holmes J

Dr J F Wood
Dr D A Grant

FINDINGS AND ORDER:

At the time the offence was committed the defendant was suffering from unsoundness of mind as described in schedule 2 of the Mental Health Act 2000 (Qld)1.   

The defendant is to be detained as a forensic patient at The Park High Security Program Authorised Mental Health Service for involuntary treatment and care;2.   

Approval of limited community treatment at the discretion of the treating psychiatrists on the following conditions:3.   

Where the defendant is escorted on the grounds of the Authorised Mental Health Service he must remain under the escort of health service staff members nominated by the authorised psychiatrist for the duration of limited community treatment and must comply with the directions of the nominated staff members for the duration of the limited community treatment;a)   

During any closed bus trips, the defendant is to remain under the escort of a health service staff member or members nominated by the authorised psychiatrist for the duration of the limited community treatment and must comply with the directions of the nominated staff member or members for the duration of the limited community treatment.b)    

CATCHWORDS:

MENTAL HEALTH – DECLARATION OR FINDING OF MENTAL ILLNESS OR INCAPACITY – where the defendant is charged with murder –where the defendant suffers from schizophrenia, paranoid type– where defendant had delusional ideas and psychotic experiences– whether defendant of unsound mind at the time the alleged offence occurred – whether defendant deprived of one or more of the capacities in s 27 of the Criminal Code

Criminal Code (Qld), s 27

Mental Health Act 2000 (Qld), schedule 2

COUNSEL:

Mr D Shephard for the defendant
Mr W Isdale for the Director of Mental Health

Mr R Pointing 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. TW is charged with the murder of his mother, G, on 9 May 2004.  At 2.55 a.m. on that day, he went into a police station and said that he had just stabbed his mother with a garden fork while she slept.  He said that he wanted police to attend the scene before his brother arrived home, and he gave his personal details.  He told the police that she was dead.  That, as it turned out, was true.  G had died from multiple stab wounds inflicted with a garden fork which TW appears to have taken from a garden shed.

1. In an interview with police officers, TW said that he had got the fork from the shed and had also put it back; that he had meant to kill his mother; he believed that he had been mistreated as a child.  It seems that TW had been drinking alcohol on the preceding day.  He gave an account of starting at about 8.00 a.m.  He had drunk a large quantity, some 24 stubbies of mid-strength beer, but it also appears that his drinking ceased somewhere between six and eight hours prior to the killing.  It is also of some significance that he drank regularly and is likely to have developed a considerable tolerance to alcohol.

1. Dr Schramm has given a report dated 22 May 2004.  TW disclosed multiple delusions to him:  a belief that his parents were trying to set him up as a paedophile, and that they had tortured and drugged him as a child.  He believed that he had been told by a secret organisation while he was hypnotised that his mother deserved to be killed.  And, indeed, it seems that TW expected in the aftermath of the event that others would see his actions as right and proper.  Dr Schramm diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia which was consistent with earlier diagnoses of schizophrenia made of TW.  That diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia is concurred with by the other psychiatrists who have seen him for the purposes of assessment of soundness, Dr Van de Hoef and Dr Varghese. 

1. Dr Schramm's view was that TW was deprived of the capacity to understand what he was doing was wrong.  It was possible that there remained some degree of intoxication even though he had stopped drinking several hours prior to the death.  That might cause some degree of disinhibition.  It was possible, in abstract terms, that that might have had an effect on the capacity for control, but it had no bearing on the fundamental delusion: the belief that TW’s mother deserved to be killed.

1. Dr Van de Hoef gave a report of 15 October 2004.  She also considered that TW was deprived of the capacity to know that he ought not do the act.  She considered that there might have been some residual effect of alcohol but it was doubtful whether it might have had some disinhibiting effect.  She and Dr Varghese, who gave a report of 3 November 2004, both regarded TW as deprived of the capacity to know he ought not do the act because of the delusions under which he was suffering.

1. Dr Varghese considered that TW also was deprived of the capacity to control his actions.  He did not think that any of those losses of capacity had been influenced by alcohol and if there were to be any effect, it would be on the capacity of control, not on the capacity to know that the act ought not to be done.  Both of those psychiatrists, Dr Van de Hoef and Dr Varghese, elicited delusional beliefs from TW consistent with those which were recounted to Dr Schramm.

1. It is, I think, abundantly clear that the actions of TW on the night in question were the product of mental disease.  The question of intoxication does not really loom in the case.  Whether he was intoxicated to any extent is fairly speculative, given the long timeframe for the drinking and the time lapse between the last drink and the events.  There is no blood alcohol concentration in evidence.  At its highest, if alcohol had any disinhibiting effect so as to impact on his capacity for control, there is nothing to indicate that it contributed at all to the delusional state which deprived him of the capacity to know what he was doing was wrong.

1. I am satisfied that TW was of unsound mind within the meaning of that term as it is defined in the Mental Health Act 2000 at the time that the offence was committed. A forensic order is warranted. He will be detained in The Park High Security Program Authorised Mental Health Service. I approve escorted limited community treatment at the discretion of the treating psychiatrists, on the conditions that where he is escorted on the grounds of the authorised mental health service he remain under the escort of health service staff members nominated by the authorised psychiatrist for the duration of limited community treatment, and that for the purposes of escorted limited community treatment he complies with the directions of the nominated staff members for the duration of the limited community treatment.

1. Other than escorted limited community treatment on the terms I have described, I approve also that limited community treatment extend to closed bus trips, during which TW is to remain under the escort of a health service staff member or members nominated by the authorised psychiatrist for the duration of the limited community treatment and he is to comply with the directions of the nominated staff member or members for the duration of the limited community treatment.