Papers reveal violent side of 'one-off' killer

By SCOTT MacLEOD

An Australian psychiatric patient found in Auckland after he killed a teenager has a long history of legal trouble with drugs and women.

Claude John Gabriel is being held in the Mason Clinic in Pt Chevalier until a judge decides whether he will be sent to Australia, forced to undergo treatment or released into the New Zealand community.

Relatives say he poses no threat to New Zealanders and that his stabbing of 17-year-old Janaya Clarke on the Gold Coast less than four years ago was a one-off act.

But Herald inquiries have found three protection orders taken out by a former girlfriend of Gabriel in the two years before the killing.

Gabriel, 26, was acting strangely when Auckland police arrested him on his fourth day in New Zealand. Officers did not know who he was when they collared him on suspicion of being mentally ill.

The revelations come as Mason Clinic doctors continue to assess his mental state. The doctors will report to a judge, who is expected to visit the clinic on Thursday.

The judge can force Gabriel to be detained for treatment or allow him to be released.

An Australian police liaison officer in New Zealand, Detective Senior Sergeant Geoff Sheldon, said the possibility of Gabriel's release was "a dreaded nightmare I do not want to consider".

Papers at the Sunshine Magistrate's Court in Melbourne show that Gabriel was the subject of three intervention orders in 1996 and 1997 designed to protect victims of domestic violence.

They barred him from using a firearm and from "assaulting, harassing, molesting, threatening or intimidating" a woman. Registrar Barry Bolton said the orders were granted under a law protecting people from domestic violence.

A Melbourne policeman, who would not be named, said Gabriel was well known to police as a long-time cannabis user with a history of domestic incidents.

Another Australian officer said Gabriel was "not unknown to the criminal justice system".

An Auckland policeman said Gabriel was acting strangely when found outside a Mangere hotel on Anzac Day.

"He just wasn't there in his head. He was out for lunch. He obviously needed looking after."

Gabriel had checked out of the hotel and told police he was on his way to a backpackers hostel.

He spent five months on the run in Victoria, Italy and New Zealand after fleeing Brisbane's John Oxley Hospital while on day leave.

National Party immigration spokeswoman Marie Hasler has called for a ministerial review of how Gabriel entered New Zealand without being questioned.

Gabriel's mother, Alessandra, said psychologists had told her he would never kill again. His brother, Robert, said: "He was sick, that's true, but now he's well."

However, the president of the Australian lobby group People Against Lenient Sentencing, Steve Medcraft, said Gabriel's history of aggression and lawlessness suggested that he was still dangerous.

Mr Medcraft said that, two years before the killing, Gabriel sneaked into a house across the road from his home in Keilor, Melbourne, while a teenage girl was there.

Her father found Gabriel and kicked him out.

The family did not report the incident, but later moved away and obtained an unlisted phone number.

"Gabriel is not insane," Mr Medcraft said. "He's a conniving psychopath. He shouldn't be in New Zealand."

Janaya Clarke's mother, Robyn, yesterday described Gabriel as "very dangerous - a loose cannon".

She said he took her daughter to his apartment on Chevron Island and stabbed her more than 30 times.

When his landlord burst in and told him to stop, Gabriel allegedly replied, "I can't. The bitch won't die".

Gabriel was never convicted because he was found mentally unfit to stand trial.