"I find that a difficult question to answer," he said, explaining that the unusual length of time that has elapsed and the defendant's varying accounts of what happened have made for a "complex and difficult" case. However, he said, he does believe that aspects of the case support the proposition that Akash was unaware he was morally wrong.
Barry-Walsh interviewed the defendant twice in 2021. During the second interview, the psychiatrist noted that Akash was on two different antipsychotic drugs - one of which is generally considered a last resort because of its serious potential side effects - as well as two antidepressants and an anxiety medication.
"It tells us that the team considered he had a treatment-resistant illness and they were trying every medical option to try to treat that," he told jurors. "That tells you how difficult he is to treat."
But it was witness statements in the days before and after Kaur's death and Akash's own text messages that were the most helpful in Barry-Walsh's psychological assessment, he said. The defendant's own accounts and his methamphetamine use were also helpful but of a lesser extent, he said.
"I was struck by the consistency of the descriptions of deterioration of Mr Akash in the weeks prior," the psychiatrist said, pointing to testimony from others that the defendant seemed very concerned with being watched and his email accounts being hacked.
Akash was also described as wearing his security guard uniform even when not going to work and when sleeping.
"People were realising that he was not himself and different," Barry-Walsh said. "These kinds of changes are consistent with the onset and the worsening of psychotic illness."
Akash has told mental health workers over the past six years that prior to Kaur's death he had started hearing malevolent voices in his TV and his iPhone, including the voice of his girlfriend. Strangers followed him and were able to change traffic lights so they could control his movements when he was working overnight security shifts, he said.
On the day he killed Kaur, he said he was frightened - believing she had hacked his GPS to direct him to a secluded area before giving hand signals to strangers who wanted to hurt him. After killing her, he said, he drove several kilometres before parking the car under a tree and rolling her body down a hill. He told Barry-Walsh that he had hoped the tree would obscure him from the media and a helicopter, both of which he claimed were following him.
He told the psychiatrist that he tried to keep his mental illness a secret from authorities after his arrest because he thought revealing so would result in a longer sentence.
Even during the 2021 interview, after five years of psychiatric intervention, Akash told Barry-Walsh that he felt "50/50" about whether the events that day were attributable to a mental illness or if they really happened.
Prosecutors Gareth Kayes pointed out during his opening statement earlier this month that a schizophrenia diagnosis does not automatically equate to a finding that a person doesn't know the difference between right and wrong. He directed jurors to a letter Akash wrote to a judge in 2016, after his guilty plea, in which he said: "I can't believe my anger led me to commit such a horrific crime."
Barry-Walsh said it's not uncommon for patients who might not have known right from wrong in the depth of their mental illness to feel remorse later on.
Jurors are expected to hear from a second psychologist when the trial resumes.
