The offender's history
28 The psychiatric condition affecting the offender at the time of the offence is obviously a matter of considerable importance. In dealing with the offender's culpability, it is necessary, in my view, to consider not only the condition, but also its history and the circumstances out of which it arose. The following account is extracted from the evidence given by the offender at the trial (which I accept as reliable) and the opinions of the psychiatrists who gave evidence at the trial, Dr Skinner (for the Crown) and Dr Westmore (for the defence). I should state, however, that I regard the opinion of Dr Westmore about the nature of the offender's condition at the time of the offence as the more persuasive of the two, partly because I thought his account overall more coherently linked to the circumstances and my own judgment of them - including, in particular, the horrific character of the attack itself and the subsequent dismemberment. The significant weakness in the cogency of Dr Skinner's conclusion was the fact that she was unaware of the nature of the attack upon the deceased and, I think, underestimated the massive violence constituted by his almost immediate dismemberment of the body. Moreover, Dr Westmore's view of the offender's mental state in the period immediately preceding the offence more closely accords with my own view - drawn from the evidence as a whole, including that of the offender - of his behaviour at that time.
29 The offender described a happy and secure childhood whilst he was growing up in rural Victoria but which gradually became more difficult after the family moved to Canberra when he was about eight years old. For some reason he experienced significant difficulty in adjusting to the change, marked amongst other things by difficulty in forming friendships at school. His closest friend was accidentally killed by falling from a rooftop and fracturing his neck. His death significantly affected the offender. When he started high school he began to suffer health problems involving the loss of weight and significant enervation which became so bad that he started to fall asleep in class. At the age of twelve he was diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes requiring injections four times a day. This in itself was a serious matter for him but it also meant that he had to give up competitive basketball and football in which he had been involved because of the risk, as I understand it, of the effect that intense physical activity might have on his blood sugar levels, so that he was restricted to social sport. He had been a good student at primary school but his performance at high school, perhaps not surprisingly, was adversely affected. Aside from the adjustment difficulties to which I have adverted, his problems with coping with ordinary school life because of his undiagnosed diabetic condition led to conflict with teachers and social isolation.
30 About a year later, the offender's grandmother, to whom he was close, died after a protracted period of illness from a malignant brain tumour. Something like a year after this, the offender's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a lengthy period of chemotherapy. As she was gradually recovering she was diagnosed with cancer in her other breast and treatment recommenced. This caused significant depression.
31 As these things were happening the offender was introduced to the use of marijuana by school friends. At about sixteen or seventeen he commenced using amphetamines which he obtained from a school friend who had been prescribed dexamphetamine for Attention Deficit Disorder. The use of amphetamines started about the year 2000. He said that it made him feel confident and energetic, comfortable in himself and not concerned or anxious about everything.
32 The offender changed school to undertake year 11 studies and was introduced to ecstasy and cocaine, which he added to amphetamines, these substances also being taken by those with whom he was associating at the time. Although he periodically used other drugs, he mainly used amphetamines.
33 The offender's relationship with his parents became strained due to his increasing substance abuse and associated problematic behaviour and he left home to reside with a number of friends although he returned home for brief periods on several occasions. The offender had commenced self-harming behaviour soon after he was diagnosed with diabetes with the frequency and seriousness of this conduct increasing over time.
34 The offender left school at the age of sixteen and worked in a number of different jobs but his ability to maintain employment was adversely affected by his addiction. He was unable to function without taking drugs but the effect of the amphetamines upon him was to create increasingly paranoid and delusional experiences. In July 2002, he was brought into Canberra Hospital presenting with self-harm, multiple minor lacerations to his arms and neck although he said that these injuries were not suicidal but "a release of anger". He did not wish to see the mental health crisis team. He said that he injected some amphetamines on the evening before his presentation at the emergency department. On 6 August 2002 he came to the hospital concerned that he had run out of glucometer strips needed for his diabetic condition and complained of having painful cold and swollen hands for the preceding two weeks. He also told hospital staff that he had taken amphetamines earlier that evening. He appeared to be agitated and pale but was discharged with glucometer strips and an offer of diabetic education which he refused.
35 On 11 August 2002 the offender was brought in by police for an assessment of the mental health team. It appears that he had a two-week history of increasing sleeplessness and irritability and self-destructive behaviour including a para-suicide attempt with evidence on history of auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions. He was noted to be an amphetamine user. An order for his involuntary detention was made under the Mental Health Act on 21 August 2002 upon the evidence of his general practitioner who had seen him on the previous day and his parents, that he was suffering from a severe mental disturbance with auditory hallucinations. His unstable diabetes was complicating the picture. There were no distortions of perception evident but he had admitted to hearing voices two weeks before. Due to paranoid ideation he had moved back to his parents' home. He had apparently destroyed some furniture in his parents' house in fits of fury. He was released three days' later after sedative and anti-psychotic medication. It appears, however, that he did not continue to take that medication after some little time.
36 It is obvious from this history that the offender's commencement of and his continuous amphetamine use was significantly instigated when he was very young indeed by a number of major crises in his life. As he said, the drugs provided a way by which he could feel both better about himself and secure and hopeful about the future. Of course, such drug-induced feelings are a delusion, a delusion which becomes distressingly obvious as soon as the effect of the drug wears off. He did not commence drug taking as a mature person, nor even as a young person approaching maturity. He was a child, a child who became addicted to a substance that enabled him, for a short time, to think that his life was or could be worthwhile. His ability to cope with the stresses in his life and his response to those stresses must be viewed in that context. To treat him as a recreational drug user would be not merely to be quite inaccurate but grossly unjust as well.
37 The conclusion that the offender suffered from a drug-induced psychosis in August 2002 is inevitable and, indeed, is agreed both by Dr Skinner and Dr Westmore. I do not doubt that this condition returned when he recommenced his use of amphetamines either later in 2002 or early 2003 and that he was suffering from the psychosis which then re-emerged at the time of the killing, quite possibly complicated by his badly controlled diabetes. Although there had been some violence expressed in his destruction of property and his para-suicidal attempts that led to his admission to hospital in the previous August, there was nothing that suggested such extraordinarily violent conduct as was inflicted on the deceased.