A man is on trial charged with murder and arson for the deadly Loafers Lodge fire.
The man who lit the deadly Loafers Lodge hostel fire changed his story about what happened around the time he would have been considering his plea of insanity, a court has heard.
Despite the inconsistencies in the alleged murderer’s accounts, a psychologist has said he believed the man’s self-report that voices commanded him to light the fire.
Dr Krishnen Pillay was the only one of six psychologists who assessed the man, and believed he was insane.
The defendant is on trial in the High Court at Wellington charged with arson and five counts of murder for killing Mike Wahrlich, Liam Hockings, Peter O’Sullivan, Melvin Parun and Kenneth Barnard on May 16, 2023.
He has interim name suppression and is claiming a defence of insanity, but does not dispute that he lit the fire. He has previously been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and absconded from a mental health facility just weeks before the fire.
Pillay has been giving evidence for the defence this week, providing his expert opinion that he believes a defence of insanity is available to the man.
The defendant spent the first few months after lighting the fire flatly denying he had done it, and telling experts he was not hearing voices at the time.
In contrast, when Pillay interviewed him at the end of August that year, the man’s story changed to say he had been commanded by voices to light the fires.
“This significant change took place around the time that he was thinking about his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity,” said Crown prosecutor Stephanie Bishop during cross-examination.
She noted Pillay was the only expert who did not include in his report any considerations about whether the defendant’s account of what happened was reliable.
She noted that psychologists assessing the mental health of those accused of crimes are required to consider whether the person is “malingering”, which involves falsifying or exaggerating symptoms for some type of personal gain.
“Please explain to the court why you have not addressed this elephant in the room, that all five other experts say that [the defendant’s] accounts are unreliable,” Bishop said.
Pillay said the defendant tended to say what he thought people wanted to hear, and said he would expect him to become more “open” about his symptoms once in recovery from his mental illness, which the man was at the time of the interview.
He said he was careful not to put words in the defendant’s mouth or ask him if voices had told him to do it.
Pillay also said it was possible the man hadn’t told earlier interviewers about his symptoms because he didn’t want to incriminate himself.
“From my read of your report, your two reports, you don’t mention reliability at all. Is that right?” Bishop asked.
“I may not have, I probably don’t mention reliability in the report,” Pillay said.
“By contrast, all of the other experts in this case have expressly questioned the reliability of [the defendant’s] self-report within their reports,” Bishop noted.
She also pointed to some of Pillay’s notes in which he described the defendant as “truthful”.
“It looks like that was a scribbled note as it came to mind. I just scribbled things in the margin,” Pillay said.
Bishop took him through several inconsistencies in the defendant’s accounts, including the fact he lied to police and two other experts initially by saying he had not lit the fire.
“You’d agree that fundamentally demonstrates [he] is capable of lying about the fires,” Bishop said, asking if Pillay agreed he should have taken this into account in drawing his own opinion.
After a lengthy pause, Pillay said yes.
He noted denial was a “fundamental thing” and it was common in his experience for people to start telling the truth after receiving treatment.
Referencing other inconsistencies in the man’s accounts, Pillay said the defendant was an “unreliable historian” but that he did apply “a degree of scepticism” when assessing his reliability.
Through her cross-examination Bishop also pointed to multiple pieces of evidence which she said did not support a finding of insanity.
Pillay agreed much of the CCTV footage of the defendant was clinically unremarkable and showed the man being organised and keeping good hygiene.
“We know from the history that when [he] is very unwell, he tends to be grossly disorganised, grossly thought-disordered,” Bishop said, adding that the behaviour by the defendant before the fire was not consistent with how he was known to act when he was seriously unwell.
Pillay said the man’s “flare-ups” waxed and waned and could happen and diminish quite suddenly. He agreed that some of the man’s more serious symptoms, including crawling on the floor and “sniffing at blood” were not exhibited at the time.
When pressed by Bishop, he agreed that the “objective evidence” did not show he was seriously psychotically unwell, and that he primarily based his opinion on the defendant’s self-report of his symptoms.
Pillay disagreed with the other experts on many aspects of the defendant’s mental health, noting multiple behaviours he believed were signs the man was seriously unwell.
The trial continues.
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.