Killer saw himself as the victim - doctor

Pyschiatrist Dr Philip Brinded.

Clayton Weatherston appeared to blame Sophie Elliott for his act of killing her, and was frustrated at how she was being praised after her death, a psychiatrist says.

Interviewed four months after he fatally stabbed and cut his former girlfriend 216 times, Weatherston told Associate Professor Philip Brinded he had thought about the events so much that he was "almost over it".

Professor Brinded yesterday gave the final piece of evidence in Weatherston's murder trial. The trial in the High Court at Christchurch will resume on Monday when the prosecution and defence give their closing addresses to the jury.

Dr Brinded described Weatherston as suffering from a personality disorder, but no serious mental disorder that could give grounds for an insanity defence.

The former Otago University economics tutor was also a "grossly narcissistic individual".

"Mr Weatherston appears to lay the responsibility for a tumultuous relationship, and also the catastrophic end to that relationship, fairly firmly at the feet of Sophie Elliott," Professor Brinded said.

"He appeared to lack empathy or remorse, instead expressing frustration at the fact that he was now incarcerated while people spoke positively with respect to Ms Elliott."

Weatherston thought this trial might help to redress the "imbalance" in how he and Ms Elliott were viewed. In his own evidence, he denied saying Ms Elliott was totally to blame for her death, as he "played a part in this".

Weatherston told Professor Brinded he killed Ms Elliott after a conversation about her "being a slut" led to her swinging a pair of scissors at him and knocking his glasses off.

"He said he remembers feeling very vulnerable and thinking, 'I am in trouble here.'

"He said he then felt a degree of vertigo, felt very stressed and then said he felt 'nothing physical'. He then remembers little other than 'it was almost like I was pounding a pillow, like I was floating'."

His next explicit memory was standing over Ms Elliott with the pair of scissors and stabbing her through the neck.

Weatherston recounted a feeling of dissociation during the attack.

"He said he was troubled by the ferocity and apparently sadistic nature of the attack. He said this has brought shame on his family."

Psychiatrist David Chaplow said one of the features of Weatherston's personality was the "inability to let go".

ON TRIAL

* Clayton Robert Weatherston, 33, is charged with the murder of Sophie Elliott, 22, in Dunedin on January 9 last year. Weatherston accepts he is guilty of manslaughter, but denies the charge of murder.
* His defence is that he was provoked by the emotional pain he suffered, and by Ms Elliott attacking him first with a pair of scissors.
* Evidence has finished and the trial will resume with closing addresses on Monday.