A lawyer for the man accused of the Loafers Lodge fire claims he was unwell due to not taking schizophrenia medication. Photo / Marty Melville
By Lauren Crimp of RNZ
A lawyer for the man accused of lighting the fatal Loafers Lodge fire has suggested the defendant was very unwell at the time because he had not taken his schizophrenia medication for a month.
The 50-year-old is charged with five counts of murder, and two of arson, after setting the Wellington boarding house alight on May 16, 2023.
It’s not disputed that he lit two fires, but his lawyers intend to raise a defence of insanity.
The Crown says the man knew what he was doing was morally wrong.
Forensic psychiatrist Dr Justin Barry-Walsh, who interviewed the defendant multiple times following the fires, said on balance there was “too much doubt” that he didn’t know it was wrong.
While cross-examining Barry-Walsh, the man’s lawyer, Steve Gill, repeated his client’s symptoms and hospitalisations over the years.
Barry-Walsh agreed the man’s schizophrenia was severe, but said he did respond well to treatment although he still displayed some symptoms while he was medicated.
“He’s a whole lot better in the hospital than out?” Gill said.
“Yes,” Barry-Walsh said.
Gill described the man’s history as a “revolving door”: becoming unwell, being admitted to hospital and recovering with treatment, before being released and becoming unwell again.
Barry-Walsh said that was mostly true, but he pointed to a period between 2016 and 2022 when the man had “done better” with minor relapses.
Between 2022 and March 2023, he deteriorated after being taken off a particular medication and was hospitalised four times, Barry-Walsh said.
In April 2023 – about a month before he lit the fires – the man had fled a mental health facility and stopped taking his oral medication.
He was last injected with “depo”, which is slow-releasing, on April 7.
“Do you agree that ... the depo medication would have run its course by the time he went AWOL?” Gill asked.
Barry-Walsh did not agree, saying there still would have been residual medication in the defendant’s system.
However, he agreed the “optimum” frequency of injections was every two or three weeks, which the defendant had not been getting.
There was no question the defendant’s illness worsened when he was not medicated, Barry-Walsh said.
On Wednesday, Crown lawyer Stephanie Bishop told the jury arguing the defence of insanity was a “three-pronged test”: the defendant must have a “disease of the mind”, and prove that because of that they did not understand what they were doing, or that it was morally wrong.
Barry-Walsh said on balance, there was “too much doubt” that the defendant did not know lighting the fires was wrong.
But he cautioned that ultimately, it was a question for the jury – and noted other experts may have a different opinion.
He spoke to factors supporting a defence of insanity, including that the defendant had a “disease of the mind” – schizophrenia – and had symptoms like hallucinations and delusions when he lit the fire.
The defendant had also fled an inpatient at a mental health facility in Auckland at the time, and he had described the offending occurring because of his mental illness – telling Barry-Walsh voices in his head told him to light the fires, despite him not wanting to.
However, Barry-Walsh said there were factors that played against an insanity defence. Witnesses who saw him in the days after the fires, like social services staff, did not note schizophrenic symptoms.
While there were hints, his behaviour did not compare to times he had been hospitalised, Barry-Walsh said.
Doubt was also cast on the reliability of the defendant’s account of what happened the night of the fires, which changed in different interviews with different doctors.
Even if his account was accepted, there was evidence the defendant had some moral reasoning at the time, Barry-Walsh said.
“This report he gave to me on one occasion that he didn’t want to do it but he was overwhelmed, this account on another occasion, I think, of hearing the sirens and being worried about what’s happened ... and worrying that some people might be trapped,” he said.
Proceedings were stalled for nearly two hours on Thursday morning, because a juror was unwell in hospital.
When it became clear they would not be able to return to court, Justice Peter Churchman formally discharged her.
The jury will continue the trial with 11 members.
It is the second week of the trial, which is set down for five weeks.
The trial continues, with the jury being shown CCTV footage of the defendants’ movements at Loafers Lodge during his week-long tenancy before the fires were lit.
-RNZ