Family 'angered' murder accused

The man accused of murdering his mother and trying to burn down their Queenstown home planned to kill his whole family and should not have been released from Southland Hospital's mental health unit, a psychiatrist said in the High Court at Invercargill yesterday.

Mark Edmund Burton, aged 20, has denied murdering his mother, Patricia Anne Burton, at her Kelvin Heights home on March 31, on the grounds of insanity.

The defence case was that Burton was suffering chronic paranoid schizophrenia.

Defence lawyer Bill Dawkins said the disease was so severe and Burton was so ill that he did not know his actions were morally wrong.

Dr Stephanie du Fresne, medical director of Dunedin's Ashburn Hall, testified before Justice Fraser that from reading Burton's notes from Southland Hospital he was not well enough to be discharged to a situation where staff were not available 24 hours a day.

Burton was released from Southland Hospital's mental health unit the day before he allegedly killed his mother.

Since Dr du Fresne first saw Burton in April there had been only a very small improvement in his mental state.

He still suffered from the delusions he held at the time of his mother's death in March.

Her first interview with him was the day after Mrs Burton was killed.

Burton said he was angry with his family and had been thinking for some weeks of killing them all, Dr du Fresne said.

He told her his mother and sister had both spoken to him about sexually abusing him.

Burton's schizophrenia was characterised by his grandiose and paranoid delusions which were common in people with this illness, she said.

He believed he was unusual and special because of the things that were happening to him, including the "molestation".

In the interviews Burton said he believed that when he was a small child he had been tripped up by aliens and a recording device had been put in to his brain.

He believed he had been killed and reincarnated and his limbs had been removed and rearranged on his body.

He still had a fascination with gangster-related material, including music which promoted murder and killing police.

He had a poster which would rearrange itself to give him advice. Cannabis helped clear his mind to see this, Dr du Fresne said.

"On a basis of the hospital notes I don't think it was appropriate to discharge someone with his history who was drinking heavily."

Burton had shown no regret, sadness or contrition over the death of his mother.

Because he believed she was abusing him, she had deserved to die. Burton was fit to plead at the trial but had acted on a firmly held belief and did not believe his actions were morally wrong.

- NZPA