1 HIS HONOUR: Raymond John Prior is before the Court for sentence upon conviction of murder. On Tuesday last the jury was empanelled for trial. After an opening address by senior counsel for the Crown, counsel for the prisoner exercised his right also to open, and he informed the jury that the sole issue being canvassed on behalf of his client was whether the prisoner was guilty of murder or guilty of manslaughter by reason of substantial impairment by abnormality of mind, a partial defence made available by s23A of the Crimes Act.
2 However, after the calling of several witnesses, whose testimony was not the subject of significant challenge, the prisoner sought to be re-arraigned. This was done and he pleaded guilty to murder. I have taken that plea to convey a concession that whatever impairment the prisoner claims it was not so substantial as to warrant his liability for murder being reduced to manslaughter. So much has been acknowledged by counsel. However, it is contended that the prisoner did suffer from a psychiatric condition which was diagnosable as an adjustment disorder, and that although any impairment was not so substantial as mentioned, it is nevertheless a relevant factor of mitigation which ought to be considered in the assessment of sentence. To this end a volume of psychiatric material was put before the Court and I will return to refer to some of it.
3 The victim and the prisoner had been married for about 12 years, but there should be added to this a period of about six years premarriage relationship. Each of them had previously been married. The victim had two daughters who are now aged in their early twenties and the prisoner has two sons who are also adults. The family at the time of the offence also consisted of a son of the prisoner and his wife who is now aged about 11 or 12 years. The prisoner is not the natural father of this child who was conceived whilst the prisoner was serving a sentence in respect of a drug offence, but it is plain, and I accept that he has always treated this boy, and continues to treat him, as his own son. I accept that his expressed affection for him is genuine.
4 Since his early teenage years the prisoner has had an involvement with drugs escalating from marihuana use to more deleterious substances. One of his sons spoke to a psychiatrist and described him as a slave to the drug heroin. His record includes convictions relating to drug matters and he has served two periods of imprisonment in respect of such offences. On the histories given to doctors and the other materials which have been tendered it would appear that fidelity of the partners to the marriage to each other was not always observed, but at least in recent years until shortly before the killing, the relationship between the prisoner and the deceased was significantly monogamous.
5 However, the prisoner's drug taking continued to be a problem. A separation occurred in the months before the killing and the prisoner went to reside in Lismore and the deceased continued to reside in the former matrimonial home at Tenterfield with the young son. The prisoner had some employment as a truck driver and the nature of this enabled him to visit Tenterfield relatively frequently.
6 The prisoner has said that it was his hope that the relationship could be restored despite the separation, and he has claimed that the deceased encouraged him to think along those lines. Whether that be accurate or not cannot in the present circumstances be definitively determined. It came to the knowledge of the prisoner that his wife was associating with another man. Among other things, the prisoner claims that his wife told him at one stage she wanted to try a straight relationship, that is with a non-drug user. Such a man was identified as Colin Booth, a truck driver who resided in Warwick in Queensland. The prisoner sought him out but said that his intended confrontation was thwarted by observing that Mr Booth had prepared himself and the prisoner contented himself with expressing his anger by slashing the tyres of Mr Booth's vehicle. This incident took place shortly prior to the killing.
7 The prisoner was visiting Tenterfield on 24, 25 August 2000, and what occurred needs substantially to be gleaned from his description as well as police investigations. The deceased permitted him to remain at the home for the night but required him to sleep in a caravan which was located in the yard of the premises. In the early hours of the morning he entered the house in order to use the toilet facility. A dog who had apparently been sleeping upon the deceased's bed got up as a result of which she awoke and the parties commenced to converse. In the course of this conversation the prisoner's wife told him that she did not love him any longer, that she believed she was in love with the man Booth, and that their relationship had already extended to engaging in sexual intercourse.
8 It was after receipt of this information that the prisoner assaulted his wife. He claims to have no precise recollection of the details of the assault. Examination of her body which had been buried in the bush for several days nevertheless showed that she had been the victim of an extremely violent assault, particularly about the facial area, and that she had been killed in circumstances which I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt included manual strangulation perpetrated by the prisoner. Post-mortem examination revealed a fracture of the 6th cervical level.
9 Subsequent to the killing the prisoner wrapped the body in a blue tarpaulin and bound it with electrical tape. He conveyed the body to some remote bush land about 17 kilometres from the township of Tenterfield and buried it in a shallow grave.
10 He returned to the home. The young boy was apparently unaware of what had happened and the prisoner gave him disinformation when he enquired as to the whereabouts of his mother. He was taken to school and the prisoner went to attend some arranged work with an employer for whom he worked from time to time in the manufacture of furniture. The absence of the deceased from her place of work caused concern and as a result of enquiries by her employer police were called. Police visited the prisoner at Black Swamp, his employer's premises, but he maintained a fiction that his wife was missing and he had no knowledge of how this came about. He mentioned to the police the existence of his wife's "boyfriend".
11 It is obvious that the police were immediately suspicious of the prisoner. In due course, as the deceased had not been located, he was asked to attend for interview at Tenterfield Police Station. As a result of some delay there and with the consent of police he departed for the stated purpose of having a meal, but in fact got a friend to drive him to Lismore. At Lismore he made some incomplete efforts to make preparations to flee but discussed the matter with a friend who persuaded him that the best thing to do was to turn himself in.
12 In order to achieve this he visited the Legal Aid Office. As a result a statement was provided to police, signed by the prisoner, in which was set out the precise location at which the deceased's body could be found. Upon supply of this statement the prisoner was arrested and charged with murder. The statement was provided on 29 August 2000. The killing had taken place in the early hours of the morning of 25 August.
13 I have already mentioned in passing the existence of prior record on the part of the prisoner and his contact with illicit drug taking. Those subjective matters apart, material was put before the Court emanating from professional psychiatrists. An issue between the prisoner and the Crown was put in terms that it was contended on behalf of the prisoner that he suffered from a psychological condition able to be categorised as an adjustment disorder, but which it was acknowledged was not of such substance as to justify reduction of his crime from murder to manslaughter, whereas the Crown's contention is that the prisoner does not suffer from any diagnosable psychiatric condition.
14 In order to deal with this contest there were put before the Court series of medical reports from professional psychiatrists, Dr Nielssen, Dr Delaforce, Dr Wilcox and Dr Westmore, the three first named of whom were also called to give evidence viva voce. It does not seem to me that the issues with which I am concerned will be advanced by a lengthy analysis of the diagnostic debate. I note that the prisoner told Dr Delaforce that his explanation for his wife's death was "that he must have transferred his anger on to her from Mr Booth when she told him that she did not love him and loved Mr Booth". I am satisfied that that accurately describes the situation.
15 This is also consistent with an observation by Dr Delaforce who reported:
"Even if it is accepted that the diagnosis of adjustment disorder is appropriate there still must be considered analysis of the mental state of Mr Prior at the immediate period before and after her death. A problem with the reports of Dr Wilcox and Dr Nielssen is that they simply just report a few symptoms that supposedly represent an adjustment disorder and use the disorder as an explanation for Mr Prior's actions that allegedly led to his wife's death. Mr Prior told me that the last sentence his wife spoke before he repeatedly struck her before her death was that she did not think she had any love for Mr Prior and was in love with Colin Booth. Mr Prior told me that in retrospect he realised he must have changed at the time she told him this from previously only wanting to blame and fight Mr Booth to expressing his anger at his wife when he struck her and then realised he had also strangled her. His anger alone at the relevant time, which relates to his admitted chronic problem with a bad temper, best accounts for his behaviour".