Forensic psychiatrist: Murder accused Wire Reddington not schizophrenic at time of killing

Wire Manuel Reddington in the High Court at Wellington where he denies a charge of murder on June 23, 2023 at Carterton. Photo / Catherine Hutton

An expert witness says Wire Reddington was heavily intoxicated when he allegedly murdered his friend and had been awake for three weeks because he’d been using so much methamphetamine.

Forensic psychiatrist Dr Justin Barry-Walsh also gave evidence that Reddington wasn’t suffering from schizophrenia at the time, which is contrary to what the defence has suggested.

Reddington’s defence team earlier told a jury it was his brother Tipene who killed Jamie Gill at a rural property near Carterton in June 2023. However, if jurors don’t accept that they are being asked to find Reddington was not only schizophrenic but he didn’t understand his actions were wrong at the time of Gill’s death.

The Crown alleges Gill was killed during a fight in which he was cut and beaten before being strangled and then dragged down the driveway of the property. He was then dumped in a paddock, face down in a ditch, where he was left to suffocate. Pieces of his ears had also been ripped off.

Barry-Walsh told the High Court at Wellington he was directed by the court to assess Reddington‘s fitness to stand trial and also the question of insanity. He interviewed Reddington in October last year for about an hour and a half.

Barry-Walsh said at that interview Reddington showed no signs of psychosis. He was organised and there was no evidence of the kind of disturbance of thinking that is often seen with psychosis.

He described Reddington as “quietly spoken, sad-looking and reflective. He engaged well and was fluid and organised in his language and speech.”

Reddington described a traumatic childhood and spoke of feeling angry, admitting he could blank out on occasions. He spoke of “snapping” since he’d been kicked in the head by a horse 10 years earlier.

After that head injury he started seeing “s*** that’s not there” and having repressed memories. He began seeing dead family members and monsters and spoke of having out-of-body experiences. He used petrol and alcohol to deal with these, Barry-Walsh said.

His most common hallucination was to see his dead cousin, who would ask him to go and see his aunt and apologise. He felt other inmates’ hurt and pain. He said medication as well as methamphetamine and cannabis helped him to deal with these hallucinations.

Barry-Walsh said Reddington reported using cannabis since the age of 10, alcohol from the age 13 and methamphetamine from the age of 21, smoking up to a gram a day. He said methamphetamine stopped him feeling paranoid, and he couldn’t function without it.

The forensic psychiatrist said on the night of the killing Reddington admitted to drinking extensively and reported the group had drunk two dozen RTDs, two slabs of 18 cans of ready-to-drink alcohol, three bottles of Scrumpy and two bottles Nitros - a vodka premix. He agreed he was intoxicated that night.

Reddington told him he could “remember bits and pieces” of what happened but believed Gill had run off down the drive and got into a car, leaving the property that night.

Barry-Walsh said prior to the incident, Reddington had been awake for three weeks because he’d been using so much meth, as well as considerable amounts of cannabis.

Jamie Gill died on a Carterton property on June 25, 2023. Photo/ Supplied

Asked by Crown prosecutor Stephanie Bishop to explain the difference between a person experiencing transient psychotic symptoms and an underlying psychotic illness like schizophrenia, Barry-Walsh said while meth could result in someone experiencing delusions, false beliefs and hallucinations, typically these would cease when the person stopped using the drug.

But with heavy methamphetamine use it was possible for someone’s symptoms to persist even for weeks and months, he said.

Defence argue he was suffering from schizophrenia

Reddington’s lawyers say there isn’t enough evidence to convict him, but have asked the jury to consider a possible defence of insanity.

Last week forensic psychiatrist Dr Shanmukh Lokesh gave evidence for the defence.

It was Lokesh’s opinion that Reddington was schizophrenic at the time of the alleged offending and didn’t know his alleged actions were morally wrong. He also explained Reddington’s diagnosis was complicated by methamphetamine use.

Lokesh told the court Reddington was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2016 by medical staff while in prison and if left untreated his psychotic symptoms would have escalated substantially. Reddington would be using drugs and alcohol to treat his symptoms, he said.

But Barry Walsh told the court the 2016 wasn’t a diagnosis but an impression by the forensic psychiatrist, “that he most likely suffering from schizophrenia.”

He also explained if someone with schizophrenia would remain unwell until they received treatment.

“When someone’s really unwell it would be uncommon, to the point of being unremarkable, if they spontaneously improved without some treatment,” he said.

Barry-Walsh said he looked at Reddington’s engagement with mental health services since 2012 it was clear he’d been adversely affected by a traumatic childhood.

He explained Reddington’s most consistent psychotic symptom was hearing voices, but that didn’t mean he had schizophrenia.

“These voices he’d started at aged 8, 11, 16 and when I spoke to him he was 22 - so there’s questions over the reliability of his report ... that is consistent that he has been subjected to trauma and someone who is abusing substances including methamphetamine and cannabis.”

“From early 2019 until now he has not been a therapeutic dose of an anti-psychotic. In prison being carefully assessed between 2020 - 2022 though voices were noted, he was not considered to have a psychotic illness.”

Barry-Walsh went onto say since being in jail he’s been assessed by two psychiatrists and had 30 sessions of therapy from a psychologist “it has consistently been their view this man does not have a long-standing psychotic illness, including around the time he was assessed by Dr Lokesh”.

Now it will be up to a jury to decide. Tomorrow the Crown and defence will give their closing addresses to the jury.

Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media advisor at the Ministry of Justice.