R v Jackson [2025] VSC 624

1. Both Dr Darjee and Dr Simms examined the accused and reviewed his medical history including the records of Northern Health where the applicant had been receiving treatment. Both are eminently qualified. Dr Simms became a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists in 2006 and has a Master's Degree in Psychological Medicine and a certificate in Forensic Behavioural Science. She is currently a consultant psychiatrist employed by the Victoria Institute of Forensic Mental Health (Forensicare). Dr Darjee has worked in forensic psychiatry in Scotland for some 20 years and then in Australia for the last seven years. He is currently a Clinical Director (Psychiatry) at Forensic Behavioural Assessment and Consultation Services, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science at Swinburne University of Technology. He has worked as a forensic psychiatrist in secure hospital, prison and community settings and has prepared over a thousand expert reports for courts and other bodies in Scotland and Australia. They both provided reports about the accused's mental state at the time of the deceased's death. They both also gave oral evidence, and their evidence was to the same effect. Indeed, they both said that they agreed with the other.
2. Dr Simms opined, in her report, that:

In considering all available information on balance it appears that Mr Jackson was experiencing psychotic symptoms consistent with a relapse of schizophrenia prior to the alleged offending, had been poorly compliant with treatment and follow-up with mental health services. He acknowledged the prior to the alleged offending he had formed the belief that the victim had been one of the people entering his home and stealing things and that he felt the victim posed a threat to him, placing him at risk.

...

It is my opinion that Mr Jackson was acutely psychotic at the time of the alleged offence and, given the nature of his symptoms, was unable to reason with a moderate degree of sense and composure about whether the conduct as perceived by reasonable people was wrong.

[Mr Jackson] has clearly had a long-standing substance misuse disorder, but although substance use, particularly his use of methamphetamine, has likely made his symptoms worse and less likely to respond to treatment, his psychotic symptoms are not merely due to the direct effect of substances and are not drug induced.

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His delusional system is centred around people breaking into his house, messing with his mind, interfering with his life, monitoring and posing a threat to him and his dogs. He believes a group of people have been stealing things, moving things around, spoiling things and interfering with things in his house. They have also entered his roof where he has heard them. He has acted on his delusions by changing the locks, attempting to seal his windows, erecting a barrier outside his home, not using his mobile phone, installing cameras, staying up to protect his house, and staying in his house and avoiding other people. He has also had persecutory beliefs about his neighbours.

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He was clearly floridly psychotic at the time of the offence. He believed the victim was associated with the people who had been persecuting him and who he had been trying to protect himself and his property from .... it was because of his delusional system, his incorporation of the victim into his delusional system, and his acute fear of and anger towards people (including the victim who was perceived to be identifiable amongst these people) who had been invading his house, interfering with his life and posing a threat to him, that he reacted and acted as he did towards the victim. He was distressed by his perception that the victim was intruding into, invading and violating his property, and posing a threat to him. He found this intolerable, so he acted impulsively by grabbing the knife in stabbing the victim to protect himself in his property, and to make the victim go away and disappear.

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So in my view, at the time he was suffering from a "disease of the mind" (i.e., schizophrenia, intellectual disability and acquired brain injury), and although he did know the nature and quality of what he was doing (he knew he was stabbing the victim), he did not know that his conduct was wrong, that is, he could not reason with a moderate degree of sense and composure about whether the conduct, as perceived by reasonable people, was wrong. This is because he was acting to protect himself and his property from people he believed to be causing or attempting to cause serious harm to him.

1. It is easily understandable that a defence of mental impairment would be available to a person who stabs another person whilst under a delusion that that other person intends them serious physical harm, or whilst subject to an auditory or other hallucination that commanded them to commit that violence. I was concerned, however, how a delusional belief that somebody might steal from a person or invade their property would operate to deny to that person an ability to reason with a moderate degree of sense and composure about whether stabbing that person, as perceived by reasonable people, was wrong. Dr Darjee addressed this concern in his oral evidence. According to Dr Darjee, it was significant that here the deceased had been incorporated into the accused's delusional belief system and the violence took place within that delusional belief system. It was also relevant that the accused had no insight, in the sense that he had no ability to reason that his delusion might not be real but might be the product of his illness. And finally, it must be remembered, he said, that individuals in the midst of a psychotic episode are not able to reason or rationalise like a well person could. In Dr Darjee's words, in people with schizophrenia there is a 'break down between the boundaries of reality and themselves' and that those individuals 'don't see where their minds end and where reality starts'. Here, the accused had an 'inability' to 'understand the world as it was' and 'believed that the victim was part of this group of individuals who are doing all these things to him' and simply was not in a position rationally to understand the threat the deceased posed: 'his ability to think rationally ... was severely impaired and his perception of things about him were completely coloured by this ... delusional system'. Dr Darjee ultimately said:

But I think at the time when he [stabbed the victim], I think he believed it was the only option for him and it was morally the right thing to do. And I think it's difficult when one thinks about the things that he said about what the victim had done, kind of trying to think, well, wait a minute, you know, the victim going into his house and being part of a conspiracy, he didn't actually deserve that. But, again, I think that's, that's kind of looking at him and, and imposing our way of reasoning on him and I don't think you can do that, because when someone is unwell with schizophrenia, their ability to actually appraise things and think things through with reason ... isn't the same as ... us looking at it from the outside. And so, even though from the outside it looks like a disproportionate reaction ... I think subjectively, at that moment, this was... what he felt he needed to do and also what he felt was morally the right thing to do.

1. I accept the evidence of Dr Simms and Dr Darjee. Accordingly, I conclude that at the time he stabbed Mr Palmer, the accused was in the midst of a psychotic episode that gave rise to the delusional belief system that Mr Palmer was a person who intended the accused harm, and that the accused's schizophrenic illness and this particular psychotic episode meant that he was then unable to reason with a moderate degree of sense and composure about whether his stabbing Mr Palmer, as perceived by reasonable people, was wrong.

1. In accordance with s 21(4)(a) of the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997, I will direct that a verdict of not guilty because of mental impairment be recorded.
2. Subject to hearing further from the parties, I will:

(a) In accordance with s 23(a) of the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997, declare that Mr Jackson is liable to supervision under Part 5 of that Act;

(b) In accordance with s 24(1)(c) of the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997, make an order that Mr Jackson be remanded in custody, pending the making of a supervision order;

(c) Make the other orders necessary to put into place the process of obtaining a report on the accused's mental condition and a certificate of available facilities and services under ss 41 and 47 of the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997; and

(d) Adjourn the further hearing of the matter to a date to be fixed after the receipt of the certificate of available services for the making of what is likely to be a custodial supervision order.

[1] Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997 (Vic), s 20(1)(b).

[5] Report of Dr Rajan Darjee dated 8 April 2025, [43].