REGINA v. AMETE [2000] NSWSC 439

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES CRIMINAL DIVISION

1 HIS HONOUR: The accused, Matalena Amete, stands charged that on or about 17 June 1999 at Revesby she did feloniously slay her son Samani Amete. She is also charged that at that time and place she assaulted her daughter Deborah Amete occasioning actual bodily harm to her, assaulted her daughter Melissa, assaulted her son Simon and assaulted her daughter Josephine. An indictment to that effect was presented today. To each of those matters before me today she has pleaded not guilty upon her arraignment but has qualified that plea, in each and every case, in that she has pleaded not guilty by reason of mental illness. 2 She had, in accordance with s.32(1) of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986, on the charge of manslaughter, on which she had been originally indicted, that is, on the first count in the present indictment, elected to be tried by a judge alone. As I understand that election, and the course that the Crown and the defence seek, I take the election will apply to all the offences on which she is now indicted. Would you confirm that, please, Madam Crown?

EVERS: Yes, your Honour. 3 HIS HONOUR: It is accepted that she had complied with the formalities under the Criminal Procedure Act 1986 and the requisite notice provided. 4 This is a matter that is plainly apposite for trial by judge alone raising as it does that question common to all counts of whether or not she is mentally responsible for her acts such that she might have the defence of mental illness in the tragic circumstances of this case. 5 When the matter came before me, the facts were opened shortly by the learned Crown Prosecutor, and I was informed by both counsel that the facts were not only not in dispute but were accepted by both parties as they were opened to me by the learned Crown Prosecutor. No question, I was informed, arose in respect of the accused's fitness to plead or fitness to elect for trial by judge alone. 6 In addition, there was provided to me by the learned Crown Prosecutor, as part of the material Exhibit A, various psychiatric reports obtained both by the Crown and by the defence. Those reports were to the one effect. That is, that at the time of the acts constituting the crimes charged, the accused was suffering from a defect of reason occasioned, in her case, by psychotic mental illness, so that she was not in law responsible for her actions. 7 In those circumstances, both the Crown and the defence were of the view that the appropriate verdict to be found was the special verdict pursuant to s.38 of the Mental Health (Criminal Procedure) Act 1990. That section provides that if in an indictment or information an act or omission is charged against a person as an offence and it is given on evidence in the trial of the person for the offence that the person was mentally ill so as not to be responsible according to law for his or her act at the time the act was done or the omission made, then if it appears to the jury, before which the person is tried, that the person did the act or made the omission charged but was mentally ill at the time the person did or made the same, the jury must return the special verdict that the person is not guilty by reason of mental illness. 8 The task I am charged with performing on a trial by judge alone, satisfied as I am with the election and that the accused before making the election sought and received advice in relation to the election from her solicitor, is that pursuant to s.17 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986, to consider and make any finding that could have been made by the jury on the question of guilt of the accused person including in my judgment referring to the principles of law applied by me and the findings of fact upon which I rely for the verdict. I will take into account the warnings to which s.17(3) applies. 9 In that regard, the Crown tendered before me, and it has been marked Exhibit A, not only the psychiatric reports but also extensive written statement material comprising, by way of categories of statements, (i) by victims and principal witnesses to the offences including statements by the accused's children in written form and as transcribed from electronically recorded interviews with the police; (ii) in addition, there were statements by witnesses to the surrounding events; (iii) to the history of the accused and the various admissions made by her; (iv) statements by witnesses as to the movements of the accused and those accompanying her; and (v) as to the finding of the body of the deceased. Further statements and a transcript of the electronically recorded interview of the accused were provided from the arresting and interviewing police, interpreter and further statements from scientific and medical witnesses including the autopsy report of the pathologist who conducted the post mortem. There was further evidence, in written form, of the identification of the deceased. 10 I have also been provided with a photograph marked Exhibit B showing the location of the body of the deceased at the rear of the house. That photograph quite graphically displays the circumstances of abandonment of that body. 11 In the report of Dr. Patfield, dated 18 November 1999, there is set out, in very considerable detail, the circumstances of the offences. Further there has been precise reference in that report to the accused's past psychiatric and medical history. Annexed to the report are detailed analyses of the police interviews with the accused and certain of the statements of the victims and witnesses for the purpose of the diagnosis of the accused. That material is of great value. 12 In the light of the material opened to me by the Crown by way of summary, which is agreed to and accepted by the defence, it is not necessary for me in this judgment to recite the detail to which Dr. Patfield had reference, particularly because the diagnosis to which he came was a diagnosis unanimously shared by the psychiatrists and which diagnosis has been supported by the reaction of the accused subsequently to the treatment especially adopted for the treatment of a psychosis being one of the schizophrenia illnesses. 13 It was the Crown case that on 17 June 1999, the accused drowned her three year old son when she attempted, as she saw it, to rid him of evil or exorcise the devil from him by pouring water into his mouth and standing on him. 14 That offence and the offences alleged against her that day against the other children, I was informed, occurred in the context of attempts being made by the accused in a violent episode of bizarre religiosity to rid her children of what she believed, in her delusional state, was their possession by the devil. She had begun to exhibit bizarre behaviour in this episode in her life on 14 June 1999 and was observed by members of her church and her children to have exhibited that behaviour publicly during a church service and, in addition, exhibited that behaviour in contact with her relatives. 15 On 16 June, in particular, the daughter, Melissa, observed her mother to be acting strangely. She appeared to be convulsing and exhibiting glossolalia during the church service. It was sought to relieve her strange behaviour by resort to a faith healer to whose home she went and returned to her children the following morning. 16 It was that day in a relatives' home in Revesby that she, with the assistance of others, sought to force into her children large quantities of water while standing upon them for the purpose of casting out evil of the devil, as I have said, and she did this while making utterances concerning the children being covered by the blood of Jesus. It was in this process she occasioned scratches to the face, bruising to the body and petechial haemorrhage to the eyes of certain of her children leading to the charges that she presently faces. 17 At the conclusion of the initial occasions during which she sought to treat the children in this fashion, she formed the view, following her son yelling at her, that the devil remained in him. It was as a consequence of that that she renewed, in the case of that child, the attempt to cast out devils by water, which in his case caused death. 18 Following the culminating exorcism and during the succeeding morning, she apparently attempted to revive or resurrect the child. It is not at all clear and understandably not clear, considering her mental condition, what it was that she thought had occurred or what it was that she thought had happened to the child. She tried to warm him. She took his body and with others drove back to the family home and then again back to the relatives' home. In due course, her child Deborah contacted the ambulance, and it was through that contact that the body was found and she was apprehended. 19 The Crown conceded that her speech and conduct with the police were consistent with the mental disorder to which the psychiatrists referred. Dr. Patfield concludes that she killed her child in the belief he was possessed of the devil in attempts to exorcise him, having earlier made similar attempts to exorcise the devil from her other children; that she was suffering from a psychiatric process characterised by voices commanding her to do some, at least, of these things and had been so suffering, with that suffering growing progressively worse, for at least a few days if not weeks prior to these events; that she was, at the time of these events, suffering from a defect of reason, from a disease of the mind such that she did not know that what she was doing was wrong and was labouring under the delusional belief that her son was possessed of the devil. 20 Dr. Patfield points out that she believed at the time that what she was doing was right and did what she did with intent to save her son and her family from the evil one. 21 Dr. Lucas, in a report obtained for the defence, having obtained a similar history and having referred similarly to what the accused had said, diagnosed her as suffering from an acute episode of schizophrenia. He referred to two previous episodes of psychosis she had suffered and referred to the delusional beliefs she had manifested on this occasion. 22 He concluded that due to her psychosis she may not have had a full appreciation of the danger in which her acts of exorcism placed her son and that because of her disease of the mind she was not able to reason with a moderate degree of sense and composure about the wrongness of her actions. 23 He too refers to her auditory hallucinations of a command type. 24 Dr. Westmore, in his report of 27 April 2000, concludes that she was suffering from a psychotic illness, which the history suggests had developed in the days or weeks before the incident characterised by hallucinations and delusions, which illness would have totally deprived her of her capacity to know that she ought not do the act or, indeed, that the act was wrong. He says, "She was delusionally driven". 25 Dr. Patfield, in his valuable report, referred also to her progress since admission to a secure medical unit and his report of 18 November 1999 indicates a degree of progress to which Dr. Barclay in his report also refers. He refers to the treatment with anti-psychotic medication and the development of insight. In particular, he refers to the medical regime to a great extent relieving the delusional and hallucinatory symptomatology of the disease. 26 Dr. Horne, in a further report from the same unit, that is the Bunya Medium Secure Unit, has reviewed the progress since admission noting a significant improvement in the accused's mental state and the resolution of her acute psychotic symptoms in consequence of treatment with anti-psychotic medication. That report, in some detail, deals with the circumstances under which the accused is detained in the Bunya Unit and the provision made there for her treatment, including that made for her re-integration with her family and for future management. 27 That report recommends that the accused, in the event that the order is made under the Mental Health legislation, be returned to the Medium Security Forensic Unit of the Cumberland Hospital, that is, the Bunya Unit where she is currently a patient and, in particular, sets out in some detail the rehabilitation and treatment regimen there proposed. The report indicates a possible good prognosis, now the matter is under treatment. 28 It is in that context that I come to perform the function required of me sitting as a judge alone dealing with this matter pursuant to the Criminal Procedure Act. 29 Having regard to the whole of the material, I conclude that it has been established beyond reasonable doubt that the accused by an unlawful and dangerous act caused the death of her son, as charged in the manslaughter count. I am also satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, in respect of each of the counts of assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm, that the elements of each of those offences has been made out and accept what has been put to me as the underlying factual material put forward by the Crown and accepted by the defence as representing the summation of the written material provided to me on which I base those findings. 30 I accept that at the time of the acts of the accused, to which I have referred, she was suffering from the mental condition as is set out in the unchallenged views of the psychiatrists supported by the whole of the evidence. 31 I am satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, therefore, all of the matters that, except for the mental illness defence, I would have to be satisfied of to constitute the crimes charged, but I am satisfied to the requisite extent that at the time of the acts causing death the accused was suffering from mental illness so as to not be responsible, according to law, for her actions. That is to say, she was labouring under such a defect of reason from disease of the mind either as not to know the nature and quality of her acts or insofar and if so did then that she did not know that what she was doing was wrong in that she was unable to reason about the wrongness of those acts in her delusional state with a moderate degree of sense and composure. 32 I am thus satisfied of the matters which would require the special verdict provided for by s.38 of the Mental Health (Criminal Procedure) Act 1990, that is that she is, in respect of each count, to be found not guilty by reason of mental illness and in respect of each count, I return that verdict. 33 In doing so, I have regard to the effect and consequences of that verdict as is referred to in s.39 and have provided to myself the explanation provided by s.37 and, in particular, the explanation that I will refer to later in this judgment when explaining the consequences of the verdict to the accused. 34 In reaching my verdicts, the relevant tests that I have applied are set out in my judgment in Regina v. Gillette [1999] NSWSC 115. They also appeared in the decision of Hidden,. J. in Regina v. Maxwell [1999] NSWSC 281, and that of Newman, J. in Regina v. Gavranovic [1999] NSWSC 205, to which I have referred in my decision Regina v. Noyes [1999] NSWSC 397. 35 The matters to which I have referred by way of effect and consequences and all the relevant principles are set out at length in those decisions and particularly in the judgment in Gavranovic (supra). 36 As required by the legislation, I make the order required by s.39 of The Mental Health Criminal Procedure Act 1990, that is that Mrs. Amete be detained in such place and in such manner as the court thinks fit, in this case the Bunya Unit of Cumberland Hospital and, thereafter, in such place as is determined in accordance with law until released by due process of law. 37 Matalena Amete, I order that you be detained at the Bunya Unit of Cumberland Hospital and, thereafter, in such place as determined according to law until you are released by due process of law. 38 I am, finally, obliged to explain to you and to the public generally the legal and practical consequences of the findings and the verdicts that I have just delivered. It is to this explanation that I had regard in accordance with the legislation when reaching my verdicts. 39 Mrs. Amete, you will not return to the community but will be detained in a place, which one may assume will be a psychiatric hospital, gazetted under the Mental Health Act 1990. Initially, that place will be the Bunya Unit where you are presently detained. Whilst detained you will come under the supervision of a body known as the Mental Health Review Tribunal. It comprises a President or Deputy President, who has qualifications as a barrister or solicitor and two other members, one of whom must be a psychiatrist and the other of whom must be a person having considerable qualifications and experience to serve on that body. 40 Within 14 days after these verdicts, the Tribunal will commence a review of your case. At the conclusion of the review, it may make a recommendation to the Minister for Health. The recommendation could be either unconditional or subject to conditions as to the manner in which you should be detained thereafter and treated. If the Tribunal were satisfied, but only if it were satisfied, that neither your safety nor that of any member of the public would be seriously endangered by your release, it could make a recommendation for your release. 41 If it makes such a recommendation that would be considered by the Department of Health, which, in turn, would advise the Governor. The Governor, in accordance with the recommendation and advice, could either make an order for detention or for release, conditional or unconditional. The Governor could only make an order for release where the Tribunal itself had recommended release. 42 After that first hearing of the Tribunal, it can at any later time, and must at least once every six months, review the case. After hearing, if at a later review, it would make a recommendation to the Minister for Health as to the continued detention, care or treatment or special release conditional or unconditional. The Tribunal would not be free at any such review to make a recommendation for release unless it is satisfied that your safety and that of any member of the public would not be seriously endangered by that release. 43 Again, following such a review or recommendation, the matter would go to the Department of Health and the Minister would advise the Governor. Any recommendation so advised would only be carried into effect by the order of the Governor. If you were, at any time, released into the public and a breach of those conditions took place, then the Governor may order you be apprehended and detained. Such an order would follow by reason of the practical consideration that if you are released the Department of Health would maintain a watch over your case with the assistance of a community health centre, a private psychiatrist or one of the other public authorities available. 44 In other words, if you are released conditionally back into the community, the Department would maintain a watch over you and a breach of conditions would lead to your being apprehended and detained again. The conditions which would be applied could include such matters as living in a particular place and taking particular medication, and so forth, to ensure you are cared for and the public is protected. 45 The only way in which a person ceases to be a forensic patient is, for the purposes of these provisions, when they are released by the Governor or released on conditions that at some time the release becomes unconditional but that could not occur unless the Mental Health Tribunal be satisfied on the evidence available to it that neither your safety nor the safety of any other person would be seriously endangered. Therefore, it will be a matter for the Tribunal as to whether or not during the remainder of your life you should be liberated and upon what conditions that should occur. 46 I cannot, however, pass from this case without remarking on the terrible tragedy which has overtaken you, your children, your family and your church. The circumstances of this case reveal an appalling tragedy, and it should be apparent that the proceedings, that have been adopted here and the way in which this matter has been conducted here, reflect the appreciation by the authorities and the court of the tragic circumstances under which you and your family have suffered. 47 The resolution of this matter by placing the question of your liberty in the hands of a specially constituted medically qualified Tribunal was clearly the only appropriate course to adopt.

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