The Auckland man with a history of schizophrenia who stabbed to death university student Tom Coombes - a stranger he crossed paths with on a Mt Albert walkway - has been deemed not criminally accountable due to insanity.
The 24-year-old Sandringham resident, who continues to have interim name suppression, appeared in the High Court at Auckland yesterday via audio-video link from a lockdown psychiatric facility, as Justice Ian Gault heard testimony from two psychiatrists who have interviewed the patient multiple times over the past two years.
Justice Gault reserved his decision at the end of the hearing, suppressing the testimony until late this afternoon, when he released the judgment.
“You will be acquitted of the criminal offence, but this does not mean you can go free,” the judge wrote in the decision, addressing the defendant directly. “I must order that inquiries be made to determine the most suitable method of dealing with you.”
The defendant’s murder trial had been set to start next week. Instead, his case will be called again later this year, when the judge will decide whether he should remain indefinitely at the Mason Clinic, where he has been receiving treatment since his arrest in May 2022.
Coombes, 25, had been walking home from university when he was stabbed to death on the Roy Clements Treeway, close to Mt Albert Grammar School in Auckland.
The former Massey High School student was a keen surfer who lived at Bethells Beach, where he served as a volunteer firefighter. He had been studying photography at university. Loved ones have described him previously as someone who had been living a “happy and beautiful life” before it was cruelly cut short.
Coombes’ family sat in the courtroom gallery during the recent hearing, with a small framed photo of him placed on the railing separating the area from the section where the lawyers and the judge are seated. Sniffles could be heard from the gallery as psychiatrists Krishna Pillai and Craig Immelman testified in unison that the defendant appeared to be acutely psychotic at the time of the killing.
Immelman, who was called by defence lawyer Julie-Anne Kincade KC, said the defendant was a standout case for him in his more than 30 years in the mental health profession.
“I would find it hard to think of someone more psychotic than [the defendant] when I examined him in August [2022],” he testified. “ ... At the heart of this, I could not establish any rational reason why [the defendant] would target Mr Coombes at this time.”
The defendant told mental health professionals he had seen three lights then heard God instruct him to target the victim. He had already been carrying a knife for possible use against his neighbours, who he believed through his persecutory delusions were conspiring to harm him, the court was told.
To find a defendant not criminally accountable due to insanity, a judge or jury must be convinced they suffered a disease of the mind to the extent they didn’t know their actions were morally wrong.
Crown prosecutor Mark Harborow noted during the hearing that if the case had gone to trial, it would have been alleged the defendant tried to hide under a bridge after the killing, that he later hid the knife in the centre console of his mother’s car and he tried to flee police through wastewater tunnels near his home when they swooped to arrest him several days later. Such attempts to conceal responsibility might be seen as indications he knew what he was doing was illegal, the prosecutor said.
But even if that was the case, there’s a “fine distinction” between knowing something is illegal and knowing something is morally wrong, both psychologists testified. While he might have known he risked getting in trouble through “Earthly laws”, if he sincerely believed he was following God’s instructions and was morally justified he should still be deemed insane, they said.
Terms such as “grossly unwell” and “floridly psychotic” were used to describe the defendant.
“It’s very difficult to put yourself in the shoes of someone who is at this level of psychosis,” said Pillai, who as clinical director at the Mason Clinic routinely sees patients who are among the most severely mentally ill in the nation. “He would be at the more severe end of that end.”
The defendant, who appeared on a TV screen sitting next to a court-appointed communication assistant to help him understand what was going on, hunched forward throughout the hearing and bobbed his head as if struggling to stay still.
He was also assessed by psychiatrists as having an antisocial personality disorder, with a history of breaking the law with little regard for others and a habit of killing pūkeko dating back to his childhood. He reported having killed the native birds again just prior to attacking Coombes.
Prosecutors acknowledged at the end of the hearing that they had to accept the psychiatrists’ assessments that the defendant lacked the capacity of awareness necessary to be held responsible for his actions. But they remained unapologetic about bringing the case to the brink of trial.
“The Crown says [the defendant] has been properly charged with killing Mr Coombes,” Harborow said. “There can be no doubt [he] viciously inflicted stab wounds on Tom and killed him. [He] was aware that he’d stabbed Tom.”
Questions may arise as to whether the defendant should have been on the street at all given his history, but that may be a question for another day, Harborow added, predicting that regardless of previous treatment decisions, the defendant will now “remain out of the community” for the foreseeable future.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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