Re Greenfield[2017] QMHC 4

MENTAL HEALTH COURT

1. [1]
   Nathan Peter Greenfield faces eight charges, all from 22 March 2015.  The most serious is murder of his de facto wife, June Danette Wallis.  This occurred some time in the early hours of the morning, between about 2.30 am and 5.00 am.  There are in addition two charges of going armed so as to cause fear, two charges of obstruct police, one charge of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, one charge of failure to stop a motor vehicle and one charge of possess dangerous drugs.
2. [2]
   The Court has three detailed reports from very experienced psychiatrists, Dr Voita, Dr Grant and Dr van de Hoef.  All three psychiatrists gave evidence before me.
3. [3]
   The matter had a disjointed history in the Court.  It was initially set down only for one hour, which time I considered plainly inadequate.  It was then set down for another two hours.  Unfortunately on that second occasion it was discovered that the reporting and assisting psychiatrists had not been provided with some of the video material.  The matter was adjourned again so that submissions could be made and advice taken from the assisting psychiatrists.  Part of the difficulties suffered in the matter were, I think, due to the fact that Mr Greenfield engaged a private solicitor who seemed quite inexperienced in Mental Health Court matters, and it was necessary for Legal Aid Queensland to take over the representation of Mr Greenfield after the first hearing date.  Another difficulty was that the prosecutor dealing with the matter changed shortly before the hearing and the new prosecutor found that the DPP had not made available all factual material to the Registry and the parties.  These difficulties aside, I think there was another matter which compelled the Court to allocate more time to hearing this matter than the time originally provided at the callover.  While the reports of the psychiatrists presented a unanimous, or fairly unanimous opinion on most issues, there were underlying complexities in the matter which the unanimous, or near unanimous psychiatric opinion may have disguised to some extent.  

Dr Voita, Report

4. [4]
   Dr Voita is Mr Greenfield’s treating psychiatrist.  She gave a very detailed report pursuant to s 238 of the Mental Health Act 2000 on 22 July 2015.  At that stage Mr Greenfield was an in-patient at the High Secure Unit at The Park and had been there since 30 March 2015.  
5. [5]
   Mr Greenfield was born on 25 April 1980 and at the time of the alleged offences was living with his de facto wife and their two children (aged 12 and 14 years).  Ms Wallis’s father, Paul Wallis, was living in the same house in rather temporary accommodation formed by placing wardrobes across part of the kitchen.  Mr Greenfield had no psychiatric history and no relevant criminal history.  He worked as a baker and had worked up until the day before the offending.
6. [6]
   Dr Voita first assessed Mr Greenfield using video conferencing facilities linked to the Maryborough Correctional Centre on 27 March 2015.  Mr Greenfield told Dr Voita that he believed his wife had been unfaithful for the past five years and that he had been finding more and more information that confirmed this belief.  I should state at the outset that there is no evidence at all that Ms Wallis had been unfaithful to Mr Greenfield and that the numerous and detailed incidents he describes as being proof of her infidelity were not true: they were delusional.  Mr Greenfield gave Dr Voita many detailed examples including times when his wife could not be located; finding lingerie in her car; finding empty condom wrappers and finding champagne bottles in her car.  The primary evidence Mr Greenfield had of her infidelity was that he found pornographic movies starring his wife on the computer.  He was able to identify her due to her distinctive moles and tattoos, as well as her clothing and the way she walked.  
7. [7]
   After his arrest Mr Greenfield was interviewed by police.  During that interview he formed the belief that he saw a brand associated with one of the deceased’s horses on the police table.  Other things occurred to him which led him to believe that the pornographic movies had been made in the very watch-house where he was being held. 
8. [8]
   Mr Greenfield reported that he had injured his back.  He took his father-in-law’s prescribed medication including Oxycodone for the pain so that he could continue working.  And I add, the evidence seems to be that he did work, and work long hours as a baker, right up until the time of the offending.
9. [9]
   Mr Greenfield said he thought his wife could track his movements with his phone.  He reported seeing his wife having sex with other people through the windows of their house.  He said that his wife’s vagina had been injured due to a “gangbang”.  
10. [10]
    Dr Voita thought that Mr Greenfield was reporting visual hallucinations, delusions of reference, delusions of infidelity and persecutory delusions at the time of this interview.  He denied mental illness.  It irritated him that she suggested he might have a defence to the offending based on mental illness.  At the end of the interview he reluctantly agreed to take antipsychotic medication and arrangements were made for his admission to the High Secure Unit at The Park.
11. [11]
    Dr Voita had two more formal interviews with Mr Greenfield for the purpose of reporting to the Court (19 June 2015 and 17 July 2015).  At the June interview Mr Greenfield again said that he had hurt his back in early March 2015 and had been taking “whatever I could get my hands on … Oxycodone, Tramadol, Paracetamol, Panadeine Forte and marijuana … a joint a day … mornings on the way to work.”  All of this drug use was unusual for him, however, for the two or three years before the offending he reported that he and his de facto wife had taken intravenous amphetamines on Saturday nights.
12. [12]
    Mr Greenfield reported working from 2.00 am to noon, six days a week.  Mr Greenfield said he had trouble sleeping prior to the offending because of back pain and that he was generally “a mess … crying … in a lot of pain … unfocussed …”.
13. [13]
    Mr Greenfield repeated his belief that his wife was being unfaithful to him.  He said that he began hearing voices relating to this once he started “taking the pills”.  He also reported computers, iPads, and phones showing images of his wife having sex with other men.  He adhered to his belief that the films had been made in police stations, but now also a local school and a church.  He remembered the carving he had identified at the police station and claimed that there were dates and times carved in the window at the watch-house in Gympie showing when his wife had been there.  He had earlier reported that he saw writing carved in the watch-house window – he said he knew the carving had been undertaken with the diamond ring he had given his wife.  The incorporation of his experiences after arrest into his delusions was also evident in his realising at Maryborough Correctional Centre that the person with whom his wife was having an affair was there: a Corrections officer called Anthony.
14. [14]
    Mr Greenfield told Dr Voita that he woke around 1.00 am on 21 March 2015, took a couple of pills of Endone; had half a joint of marijuana, and went to work.  He worked until 10.00 am.  His wife worked that day too.  She planned to go to “a hen’s night” and buy some drugs for them to use together that night.  Mr Wallis and the two children were at home in the evening.  Mr Greenfield spent the afternoon “doing chores”.  He took the deceased lady to her party about 7.30 to 8.30 pm and he then injected speed about 9.00 pm while the deceased was still out at the party.  He said he picked up the deceased lady around 11.30 pm and drove home, and that about 12.30 am they both injected speed.

15. [15]
    He said that after that they were “slow dancing”.  He said he was trying to become sexually aroused but could not.  He said that while they were lying on the bed the deceased lady sent a message to someone making fun of him because he could not achieve an erection.  He said, “the next thing I know I’m smothering her … there was no argument, that was basically it … I completely lost it … I snapped.”  He said he remembered his wife saying, “Nathan, can you hear me Nathan?”  He said that he told the deceased lady that he loved her.  He said he did not intend to kill his wife, he just wanted to “stop the messages”.  Mr Greenfield told Dr Voita that the deceased lady did not struggle; that he pinned her arms and rolled her on the floor, that she still had a pulse so he continued to smother her.  He noticed she was haemorrhaging from her eyes.  He said he washed the blood from her face with a bottle of water and then tried to resuscitate her.  He then said that he ran a bath and put the deceased lady’s body in the bath.  “Whenever she was in pain she’d have a bath so I put her in a bath … I didn’t want my daughter to walk in and see.”  To make that clear, he had placed the deceased lady’s body in the ensuite bath where it was found later by police.
16. [16]
    I will record that these statements to Dr Voita are contrary to fact in some important respects.  Mr Wallis found his daughter face-down in a bath, with clothes, and other items such as towels, on top of her, and a mobile phone on top of that smashed to pieces.  The police found as well contents from the rubbish bin of the ensuite in the bath on top of the other items.  The autopsy report records that Ms Wallis’s head was submerged about 20 centimetres in the water at the time she was found and that there were sodden clothing, towels, linen and pillows on top of Ms Wallis’s body.  At the autopsy, “the overall findings suggest that death probably resulted from neck compression.  There is insufficient evidence at autopsy to support drowning.  However, drowning cannot be ruled out.”^[1]
17. [17]
    Mr Greenfield says that he then gathered together all the phones and iPads which he said had pornographic films on them and drove to a friend’s house to get his rifles.  He took his young daughter with him.  He had first cleaned up the bedroom “so it didn’t look like a crime scene”.  He put rifles, diesel, and fertilizer to make a bomb in his car and took a BMX bicycle “for my daughter to ride home”.  I add that Mr Greenfield’s rifles were stored at a friend’s house because Mr Wallis had insisted on their being moved there about one week earlier because of Mr Greenfield’s erratic behaviour.  Mr Greenfield put the trip to get the guns at around 5.30 am because that is when his father-in-law left the house, in accordance with his usual habit.  He said he returned to the house to get bolts and ammunition but, when he returned, found that his father-in-law had come back to the house, and he saw an ambulance driving towards the house, so he concluded that his father-in-law had found Ms Wallis’s body.  At that point he took the SIM cards out of the phones so that nobody could track him and began driving towards Gympie.
18. [18]
    Mr Greenfield said his intent was to kill himself.  He was pursued by police he thought for between 30 and 40 minutes and was eventually stopped because the police put down spikes on the road.  When that occurred Mr Greenfield stopped the car, took a rifle, got out of the car and pointed it at police, with the intention that police would shoot him.
19. [19]
    Mr Greenfield said that he had completely lost control of his actions; “It was all just too much, it was a combination of everything, the pills, the drugs”.
20. [20]
    On 17 July 2015 Mr Greenfield gave a version of events in which he and his de facto both injected speed around 12.30 am and then, having trouble becoming sexually aroused, he injected more speed.  That is, his version was that he injected amphetamines on three occasions through the course of the night.  Mr Greenfield told Dr Voita he had never used IV amphetamines as many as three times in one evening before.  He gave a similar version of events – that is, his de facto wife was on the phone texting.  He said he wished to bring her attention to her bad behaviour, rather than to kill her.  He said that he put his hand over her mouth for about six seconds and then she haemorrhaged at her right temple.  He said, “I lost control … I just snapped … completely lost control … it’s never happened before.”  He said blood was coming out from beneath the deceased lady’s eyes.  There was no pulse and he started CPR.  He denied an intention to kill, saying he was just trying to stop her texting “the bloke”.  Mr Greenfield denied he had ever had violent thoughts or desires towards Ms Wallis in the past.
21. [21]
    Mr Greenfield said that, “I knew I’d go to prison for killing my wife when I saw the blood come out of her eyes … I then cleaned up the room for about half an hour … I knew she’d be found but didn’t want my daughter to find her … I just wanted to get her out of view of our daughter … I ran a bath … when she was in pain she’d take a bath … I just wanted to be able to say to anyone who walked in that she’s in the bath … then I gathered everything with evidence of infidelity on it … the computer, all the phones, the iPad, money out of her purse for fuel and to buy ammunition for the guns.”
22. [22]
    Mr Greenfield said he took his daughter with him in the car because he did not want his daughter to see her mother.  His intention was to drop his daughter off with relatives.
23. [23]
    Mr Greenfield again told Dr Voita that when he used cannabis and opioid medications in the two weeks before the alleged offences he began to hear voices of Ms Wallis and her lover belittling him, and his paranoia about infidelity increased.
24. [24]
    Mr Greenfield said that after he and Ms Wallis returned home (presumably somewhere between 11.30 pm and 12.30 am) he saw glimpses of pornographic photographs on Ms Wallis’s iPad.  The photographs showed Ms Wallis in sexual positions with other men in their house and on their bed.  He denied that he received any messages from the iPad or that in any other way he received any messages or commands to murder his de facto wife.
25. [25]
    On admission to The Park Mr Greenfield was tearful, distressed and labile.  He reported delusions of infidelity, delusions of reference and delusions of persecution.  He reported flashbacks regarding the killing and visual and auditory hallucinations in which his wife appeared to him, saying that he ought to be with her.  He expressed suicidal ideation intermittently.  He was provisionally diagnosed with delusional disorder with differential diagnoses of schizophrenia and schizophreniform disorder.  He was placed on an involuntary treatment order.  By April he had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder with an associated history of symptoms over the preceding six months.
26. [26]
    Dr Voita says it is of “great significance” that in April 2015 he disclosed to her that while his father was dying of cancer in 2010 he smothered his father, ending his life.  Mr Greenfield said his father begged him to do this.  He said he had felt burdened and depressed since this time.
27. [27]
    Both antipsychotic medications and antidepressants were administered, and the dosages increased, but although there was some remission in Mr Greenfield’s distress, he remained both depressed and delusional.
28. [28]
    In May 2015 Mr Greenfield told Dr Voita that he had been experiencing auditory hallucinations since 2014 and that the voices told him about his wife’s being unfaithful and about the sexual acts she had supposedly performed.  He said these voices became “mixed up with” his own thoughts.  
29. [29]
    Dr Voita records information she obtained from persons other than Mr Greenfield.  She spoke to his brother, who reported that the Greenfields had been under significant financial strain prior to the offences: they had taken out a second mortgage.  Both this brother and Mr Greenfield’s sister reported feeling scared of Mr Wallis, who they said had firearms and had made threats to kill Mr Greenfield.

Dr Voita, Opinion

30. [30]
    Dr Voita diagnosed Mr Greenfield with schizophrenia – paranoid type, by the time of her report of 22 July 2015.  She also diagnosed him with amphetamine abuse, cannabis abuse and prescription opioid abuse.  She thought that psychotic symptoms began around six months prior to the offending.
31. [31]
    Dr Voita thought that at the time of the killing Mr Greenfield was intoxicated with amphetamines.  She thought it was “less likely that he was intoxicated in a materially significant manner on either cannabis or opioids”.  
32. [32]
    She thought that at the time of the killing Mr Greenfield was deprived of the capacity to control his actions due to a state of mind which resulted from both his psychotic symptoms and intoxication.  She thought that had he not been intoxicated with amphetamines at the time, his capacity to control himself would have been impaired due to his psychotic symptoms.  She said:

“Mr Greenfield’s actions resulting in the death of his partner were primarily influenced by the presence of psychotic symptoms.  The symptoms did not completely deprive him of the relevant capacities in relation to the death of June Wallis, however they substantially impaired his capacity to control his actions.”

33. [33]
    In relation to the other offences, Dr Voita thought that Mr Greenfield was not deprived of any relevant capacity.  
34. [34]
    Dr Voita thought that Mr Greenfield was fit for trial.
35. [35]
    Dr Voita thought that Mr Greenfield needed to remain on involuntary psychiatric treatment for he had very limited insight into his illness and treatment needs.
36. [36]
    Dr Voita gave an updated reported dated 22 September 2016.  She said that as Mr Greenfield’s antipsychotic medication was gradually increased he improved in that he slept better and no longer experienced auditory and visual hallucinations.  However, he continued to assert delusional material centring on his wife’s infidelity.  He was returned to custody (from High Secure) on 28 June 2016.  At that time he was still delusional, asserting that his wife was having an affair, but he no longer believed she was involved in making pornographic videos.  He still believed that a Correctional officer from the Maryborough Correctional Centre called Anthony was the man who was having an affair with his wife.  
37. [37]
    Dr Voita continued to treat Mr Greenfield in custody and his situation remained unchanged.  He continued to be fit for trial in her opinion and she said that were he to be released from prison under a Forensic Order, she would not recommend that he be granted any leave outside the hospital grounds.  Her last report dated 27 January 2017 adhered to this view.

Dr Grant, Report

38. [38]
    Dr Grant gave a report to the Court dated 21 June 2016.  He interviewed Mr Greenfield on 20 June 2016 when Mr Greenfield remained an in-patient at The Park High Secure Unit.
39. [39]
    Dr Grant described Mr Greenfield’s account of the offences and the period leading up to them as “somewhat disjointed, partly because he was conflating events that occurred prior to the murder with some beliefs he had developed in relation to those events after the murder”.
40. [40]
    Mr Greenfield told Dr Grant that about five weeks before the killing he was using his wife’s laptop to watch pornography and then came across a personal file which he opened.  He saw images for about 10 or 15 seconds of a man and woman having sex and thought that the woman in the images was his de facto wife.  He asked Ms Wallis about this and she replied that the image was not of her, became angry, threw the computer away and smashed it.  Mr Greenfield told Dr Grant that over the next five weeks this played on his mind and he developed the belief that she was having an affair.  He realised that she had been away at times and he did not know where she was, for example, she would say she was going to her grandparents’ house but he would telephone them and discover that she had not been there.  He claimed to have found a blanket in the back of their car which had a Government marking on it so that he believed it came from the Maryborough Correctional Centre.  He believed that a man was coming to the house and hanging around when he was at work.  He thought that the man was having sex with Ms Wallis in their bed after he left for work.  He said he never saw the man or took a photo of him.  He said that Ms Wallis called out the name of this man (Anthony) instead of his name when they were having sex.  But then gave the story that at the time they were assuming false names during a role play.  He said, as to the history he gave, “It sounds stupid doesn’t it?” but Dr Grant reports that, “He nonetheless remains strongly of the view that the name Anthony had significance in relation to the man she was having an affair with.”

41. [41]
    Mr Greenfield said he found lingerie in their car glovebox and an empty champagne bottle.  As to the last, Dr Grant says, “When I questioned him closely he agreed that at times he and his wife would go places and have wine and cheese and it was possible that the empty wine bottle was something they had left in the car themselves.  Nevertheless, he was convinced that June and her lover had been having secret trysts and picnics.” 
42. [42]
    Mr Greenfield said he cleaned out the septic tank and found used condoms in the tank.  He used condoms, but he never put them in the toilet.
43. [43]
    Mr Greenfield gave Dr Grant the history about having injured his back and taking prescription painkillers belonging to his father-in-law.
44. [44]
    Mr Greenfield said he became more and more suspicious about what his wife was doing and was increasingly trying to check up on her and catch her out.
45. [45]
    On the night of the killing Mr Greenfield said that he and Ms Wallis used drugs.  He said he smoked some marijuana.  He said he had also taken a number of Endone tablets.  He said that both he and Ms Wallis used intravenous amphetamines about an hour before the killing.  He said that he and Ms Wallis were dancing and then undressed.  Ms Wallis went to the ensuite, taking her phone with her, and Mr Greenfield said he believed she was contacting her lover on the phone.  When she came out of the ensuite with the phone she would not let him see the screen and then cleared the screen.  “At that point he ‘snapped, just lost it’.”
46. [46]
    Mr Greenfield said he had been on the bed but rolled onto the floor, grabbed Ms Wallis and started strangling her.  He placed one hand over her mouth and nostrils and the other on her throat.  He held her like that until she passed away.  She bled from her nose and mouth and eyes and a vessel at the side of her head collapsed and was bleeding.  He said that he then tried to resuscitate her.  He said that at the moment he killed his wife he was very angry but afterwards he felt terrible.  He said he put Ms Wallis in the bath to wash away the blood.
47. [47]
    He heard his father-in-law drive out of the property in the early morning.  He realised he was going to get milk and the paper (as was his habit) and that he would be back in 15 minutes and discover what had happened.  He therefore formed a plan to commit suicide.  He picked up all the mobile phones and computers from the house and collected his daughter.  He intended to take her to a friend’s place before going to commit suicide.  He drove to a neighbour’s property and collected rifles which he owned.  They were in a locked facility but he knew the combination and took them.  He then intended to set off to get some ammunition and drop his daughter off but he became involved in a police chase.
48. [48]
    Mr Greenfield told Dr Grant that there had been an earlier incident when he threatened to shoot Ms Wallis’s horses because he was “off the planet”.  He had trouble explaining exactly what had happened but it was associated with his thinking that Ms Wallis was having an affair.  This was before his back injury.  Dr Grant thought that Mr Greenfield had been quite paranoid about infidelity for at least two months before the killing but it was very difficult to get a sensible timeframe from him.  
49. [49]
    Mr Greenfield said that all his ideas about Ms Wallis’s affair crystallised when he was taken to the Gympie Police Station.  He recognised the room there as the room where he had seen his wife and another man having sex.  He saw the brand of one of his wife’s horses scratched on the police desk and into the glass window of the cell and he realised that his wife had scratched the window using a diamond ring he had given her.  He had had to replace the diamond in the ring which had been lost.  He suddenly realised the diamond had been lost because she had used it to scratch the cell window.  He realised that the police in the Gympie and Hervey Bay watch-houses and at the Maryborough Correctional Centre were the men who had been having sex with his wife.  In particular, when he went to the Maryborough Correctional Centre he saw an officer there whose nametag said Anthony.  He became convinced that man was the person his wife had been having an affair with.  He could tell this was so by the way that man treated him.  At the time Dr Grant interviewed Mr Greenfield, Mr Greenfield still had these paranoid beliefs, but Dr Grant noted that there was some evidence of early doubts as to the veracity of his ideas and that the ideas had to be “elicited to a greater extent than appears to have been the case when he first came into hospital”.  
50. [50]
    He told Dr Grant that in the two weeks before the killing he had heard voices mocking him about his sexual inabilities and his wife’s cheating on him.  He reported to Dr Grant that he thought Mr Wallis and other people would be trying to kill him after the offence.  Having regard to what his siblings told Dr Voita, this may not have been delusional.
51. [51]
    When Dr Grant asked, Mr Greenfield acknowledged that he had asphyxiated his father when he was dying.  He said that he had used his hand, rendering his father unconscious, and that his father died about two hours after this.  He said this happened about 10 years ago. When asked, he told Dr Grant that he thought his wife had injuries to her vaginal area, which related to sexual activities with Anthony.
52. [52]
    Mr Greenfield said he began using cannabis at about age 16 but had not used marijuana for about 10 years before his back injury.  He began using it then to help relieve pain.  He said he was using two joints a day. 
53. [53]
    Mr Greenfield said he was using speed at age 16 and that he used it recreationally: he explained he worked a 12 hour shift from midnight to midday seven days a week and was sleep-deprived and fatigued.  He said therefore that he used speed to increase his stamina and sexual function.  He had been using speed like this for about two years before the offence.  He and his wife would share a gram over the weekend, injecting it on Saturday and Sunday nights.  

Dr Grant, Opinion

54. [54]
    Dr Grant’s opinion was that Mr Greenfield has a form of paranoid psychosis which began with manifestations of morbid jealousy in the period leading up to the murder.  His suspicions became increasingly elaborate in this period but he “bottled up his concerns and they became increasingly all-consuming for him.  Following the murder, the extent of his paranoia became more obvious and a rather complex delusional system crystallised.”  After injuring his back a few weeks before the killing Mr Greenfield suffered chronic pain and sleep disturbance and, as a consequence, a reduced ability to cope with his work.  He began abusing “powerful narcotic painkillers” and using marijuana.  Along with his amphetamine use, Dr Grant thought this “exacerbated his paranoia”.  Nonetheless, Dr Grant thought that the paranoid disorder began prior to the back injury and the increased abuse of drugs.  Given the fact that the paranoia began before the heavy use of drugs, and has persisted so long after it, Dr Grant agreed with Dr Voita that the correct diagnosis was paranoid schizophrenia.
55. [55]
    Dr Grant thought that at the time of the killing Mr Greenfield was deprived of the capacity to know he ought not do the act and possibly the capacity to control his actions.  However he thought that deprivation was:

“… to a significant extent contributed to by the intoxication with marijuana, amphetamines and narcotics.  In my opinion, his illness alone would not have been sufficient to have deprived him of the relevant capacities.  Therefore, I do not support a defence of unsoundness of mind.”

56. [56]
    In relation to the other offences Dr Grant did not think Mr Greenfield was deprived of any relevant capacity.
57. [57]
    Dr Grant did support a defence of diminished responsibility for he thought that “paranoid schizophrenia was sufficient on its own to have substantially impaired his capacity to know he ought not do the act at the time of the murder and to control his actions”.  
58. [58]
    He thought Mr Greenfield was fit for trial.
59. [59]
    While he thought that Mr Greenfield was making some response to medication, he remained “significantly unwell”.  He noted that his delusions had not resolved, although they may have modified to some extent.  He noted that he had impaired insight.  Dr Grant would not have been prepared to authorise any leave outside the High Secure Unit.  He says:

“If in the eventuality Mr Greenfield is convicted of manslaughter and is sentenced to a custodial sentence his management could be appropriately continued by the Prison Mental Health Service whilst he is in custody.  At the end of his prison sentence a decision would have to be taken as to whether he was fit to be released into the community or would need to return to High Secure for further psychiatric management under the Mental Health Act.”

Dr van de Hoef, Report

60. [60]
    Dr van de Hoef saw Mr Greenfield on 13 April 2016.  He told her that he injected intravenous methamphetamine, smoked cannabis and took two Endone tablets around 2.00 am on 22 March 2015, about two hours prior to killing his wife.
61. [61]
    He told her he worked six days a week, midnight to 10.00 am, with Monday nights off when the apprentice baked.  He thought he had been chronically sleep-deprived for years as he usually only got four hours sleep during the day.
62. [62]
    He told Dr van de Hoef that for two years prior to the killing he had suspected, and then believed, that Ms Wallis was sleeping with another man or men.  He associated a silver car which he noticed parked in their street with this, and believed that the owner of the car came to their property to sleep with his wife.  He told her of finding used condoms in the septic tank, which he thought meant his wife had been sleeping with other men.
63. [63]
    He told Dr van de Hoef that for about a month before his offending he had been “more wound up” by financial pressures including a second mortgage on the house, expense arising from the purchase of two new cars, and credit card debts.  
64. [64]
    He said that two weeks before the offending he hurt his back and that he had misused his father-in-law’s Endone tablets.  He reported that he became slightly addicted to them, taking six tablets daily.
65. [65]
    He said that his back injury and/or the drugs he was taking had meant that his sexual performance had suffered which caused him to be frustrated.  Sometime shortly prior to the killing, “towards the end”, he had started to check his wife’s electronic devices in an attempt to “catch her out”.  He had found pictures of a Maryborough Correctional officer named Anthony on his wife’s phone taken outside his own bedroom window, some of them showing the man with his arms around his wife.  He said some of them had been photo-shopped and coloured with speckled dots.  This seemed a significant matter to him.  He at first told Dr van de Hoef that there were no naked or frankly sexual photos, but towards the end of the interview he said there were photos on his wife’s laptop of his wife and Anthony having sex.  When confronted, his wife had taken the laptop and smashed it on the floor because he had obviously seen something he should not have.
66. [66]
    Mr Greenfield told Dr van de Hoef about the blanket and the empty bottle of champagne in the car.  In the last two weeks before the alleged offences he repeatedly saw the car about which he was suspicious leaving his driveway.  Mr Greenfield denied arguing with his wife about his suspicions or confronting her with his knowledge.  He said that on the morning of his offending a whole lot of things snowballed: drug use, sleep-deprivation, financial worries and the increasingly strong conviction, with proof to support it, of his wife’s infidelity.  It was Mr Greenfield who put his drug use at the top of this list.
67. [67]
    Mr Greenfield told Dr van de Hoef that he and his wife shared half a point of methylamphetamine around 2.00 am and that he had smoked a joint of marijuana and taken two Endone tablets shortly before that.  He said that the idea to kill his wife came out of the blue around 4.00 am.  He strangled her in their bedroom, saying over and over to her “I love you.  I love you.  I love you.”  He denied planning or having the intention to kill his wife prior to then.  He said he was “manic by then, with a thousand thoughts going through my head at once.”  He said that blood vessels distended in Ms Wallis’s right temple and blood came out her eyes.  He then “freaked out” and attempted CPR for about five minutes.  There was no response and no pulse.  He barricaded the bedroom door with bedside tables. 
68. [68]
    He said that after this he was aware of Ms Wallis mocking him about Anthony.  He said he grabbed the phones, computers and laptops to look for information about his wife’s infidelity.  He thought he would kill himself and Anthony, although he did not know where Anthony lived.  He thought he might drive to the Gympie gun shop to buy some ammunition to shoot Anthony and then himself.  He took his daughter with him because he did not want her to find her mother.  
69. [69]
    He gave Dr van de Hoef the story about seeing the horse brand carved in the Gympie Police Station table and recognising pictures of the Gympie Police Station lock-up as having previously been on his wife’s phone.  He said that in the Hervey Bay watch-house he heard his wife’s voice calling his name repeatedly and saw the pictures he had seen on her computer “like a movie in my head”.  He said he felt as though he had déjà vu.
70. [70]
    Dr van de Hoef noted the inconsistencies between the account Mr Greenfield gave her and the account he had given others.  She noted that he described developing suspicions over a longer period of time; then finding evidence in the months before the offending, and that he gave the greatest detail of his beliefs in very recent time, including details from the police stations and Maryborough Correctional Centre.  She said that this indicated to her that there had been an evolution of a psychotic disorder, starting with doubts about fidelity which intensified, became paranoid and then bizarre.
71. [71]
    She noted that he still adhered to his delusional beliefs.  He said he was “pretty sure” about them.  He talked about Anthony having ruined his (Mr Greenfield’s) life, and said that he would retaliate against Anthony if he ever had the chance.  As to the 24 hours before the killing, Dr van de Hoef notes that Mr Greenfield’s ideas of his wife’s promiscuity seemed to have “intensified” and “expanded”.  She says that by the time he was arrested he was describing psychotic experiences in relation to carvings in the police station table and etchings in the cell window which he interpreted as more evidence that his wife was unfaithful.  She thought that his feeling of déjà vu which he described experiencing at the police station was “an autochthonous delusion arising suddenly, fully formed from these delusions of reference, and probably from visual hallucinations”.
72. [72]
    Mr Greenfield gave Dr van de Hoef a history of smoking cannabis since the age of 16 or 17 but then ceasing from age 19 or 20 until a month before the offending.  He said he was smoking a joint a day before work because he was “so wound up” about work and financial pressures.  His history to her was that he smoked marijuana two hours before the killing.  He said that he first used methylamphetamine in 2013, for the rush and to improve his sex life.  He said he last injected that drug around 2.00 am on the date of the offending.  
73. [73]
    As to financial stressors, Dr van de Hoef reports that The Park High Secure file noted that the bank had foreclosed on the bakery business and the Greenfields’ house in August 2015, although I note that this is different to the information recorded by Dr Grant – that Mr Greenfield’s father-in-law was living in the house with the two children.
74. [74]
    Dr van de Hoef thought that Mr Greenfield was “mildly thought disordered at times” during her interview with him, and that his delusions regarding his wife’s infidelity had persisted, although she thought had probably diminished both in number and intensity, from what she had read in previous reports.  She thought his judgment appeared reasonable and that he had some insight into his situation.

Dr van de Hoef, Opinion

75. [75]
    Dr van de Hoef thought that Mr Greenfield had a paranoid psychotic illness, probably paranoid schizophrenia, which had “an insidious onset but was present from late 2014 and was unrecognised and untreated before his arrest”.
76. [76]
    She thought that while he may have suspected infidelity prior to late 2014, his behaviour clearly altered from about that time.  She thought by the time of the offending he was psychotic and that was illustrated by his beliefs and behaviour from the time of arrest, incorporating first the Gympie and Hervey Bay police, and then the Maryborough Correctional Services officers, into his delusions about his wife’s infidelity and her involvement in pornography.  She thought that he was having auditory and probably visual hallucinations by that stage.  She thought there was evidence that in the six months before his arrest Mr Greenfield had become distressed, preoccupied and withdrawn, and that he had lost a substantial amount of weight.  She thought his back injury and impaired sexual function appeared to increase his distress and consolidate his psychotic concerns.
77. [77]
    Dr van de Hoef thought that Mr Greenfield was acutely intoxicated at the time of the offending with methamphetamine, cannabis and opiates and that the methamphetamine and cannabis, in particular, would have been likely to accelerate his thoughts, make him even more paranoid, cause hallucinations and delusions of reference, and to impair his judgment.
78. [78]
    She thought that at the time of the killing his illness impaired his capacity to know he ought not do the act and that it is likely intoxication further impaired that capacity, and the capacity to control his actions.  She therefore did not support a finding of unsoundness with regard to the murder charge or the seven other charges.  
79. [79]
    So far as diminished responsibility is concerned, Dr van de Hoef said that she thought paranoid schizophrenia substantially impaired Mr Greenfield’s capacity to know he ought not do the act but said, “I am not persuaded that the illness alone substantially impaired his capacity to control his actions” (my underlining).  I interpret that she thought the drug use shortly before the killing had such an impact on his capacity to control his actions that she could not come to the conclusion that it was the illness alone which substantially impaired his capacity.
80. [80]
    Dr van de Hoef thought Mr Greenfield was fit for trial.
81. [81]
    As to the future, Dr van de Hoef thought that Mr Greenfield remained a risk to himself and anyone who he took to be the Correctional officer Anthony.  I make it clear that there is no evidence that any such person exists.  Mr Greenfield needed continued treatment, she thought, in the High Secure Unit.  She thought that he was a continuing high risk because of the severity of his illness, the unshakeability of his beliefs and the secrecy with which he had been able to harbour his beliefs prior to the killing.

Other Evidence as to Mental State

82. [82]
    Dr van de Hoef records what Mr Greenfield told the Prison Mental Health Service on 23 March 2015.  She notes his assessment as being floridly psychotic with:

“… probably psychotic ideas not only of his wife’s infidelity with multiple men (including aboriginals, Anthony the correctional officer, customers of her stable, and police officers) but of her regularly (‘every March’) filming pornographic films with the Gympie police.  …  along with his seeing her in a film on the computer, and her subsequently hiding the material via the use of ‘modems and filters’.”

83. [83]
    Dr van de Hoef also gives some extracts from the High Secure records noting that Mr Greenfield expressed a fear that his father-in-law wanted to kill him as revenge and that his wife’s family had “all been in on it” and planned to kill him on the night in question.  He is recorded as thinking that his father-in-law was intending to take all his money and property.  He drew a picture of his wife with blood streaming from her eyes, describing that as the instant the “devil came out of her”.  He spoke of wanting to catch “the culprits”.
84. [84]
    In a letter dated 29 November 2016 Dr van de Hoef reviews the numerous witness statements collected by police in relation to this matter.  She says that they indicate a number of family members, friends and employees at the bakery noticed worrying changes in Mr Greenfield’s mood and behaviour in the months before the offending, including evidence of intense (delusional) jealousy.  Mr Greenfield was verbally abusive and aggressive towards his wife; he threatened to shoot her horses if she left him, and threatened to shoot “the bastard” he believed she was having an affair with.  He drove his car at her, braking at the last moment.  Several witnesses heard him accuse her of infidelity, increasingly after Christmas 2014, but it must be said as far back as June 2014.  A DVO was taken out on 19 February 2015.
85. [85]
    There was some evidence that Mr Greenfield was following Ms Wallis’s activity on-line and interfering with posts on her Facebook page.  His father-in-law, Mr Paul Wallis, told police he thought that Mr Greenfield was mentally ill and had exhorted him to obtain medical help.  He was sufficiently worried to have the firearms removed from the house the week before the offending.
86. [86]
    The police material shows that Mr Greenfield expressed to a number of police officers again and again delusional beliefs in the hours following his arrest.  He raised these topics spontaneously, without being asked, an indication in Dr van de Hoef’s view that he was ruminating on these matters.^[2]

Dispute of Fact?

87. [87]
    There was some discussion at the hearing as to whether or not there was a dispute of fact in this case.  Mr Greenfield told Dr Voita several times that he did not intend to kill his wife and he made some other factual comments to her which contained an implication to like effect.  These were explored with Dr Voita in evidence – see tt 1-3-4 of 5 December 2016.  Dr Voita’s evidence was that she never thought of this as being in dispute – t 1-15.  Mr Greenfield did not dispute an intention to kill in the police record of interview or the recorded walk-through at his home with police.  Furthermore, he did not dispute this fact with either of the other two reporting psychiatrists, in fact he clearly accepted an intent to kill when he spoke to Dr van de Hoef: he said the idea came to him out of the blue.  Neither the DPP, nor counsel for Mr Greenfield submitted that I should fail to determine the question of soundness because there was a dispute of fact in the matter (cf s 268 of the Mental Health Act 2000).  I proceed on the basis that there is no dispute of fact about intention and that the proceedings before me were conducted on the basis that Mr Greenfield did intend to kill his wife at all material times.

88. [88]
    Further, there were numerous inconsistencies in the version of events which Mr Greenfield gave to the police, and then to each of the reporting psychiatrists.  There was no submission before me that I should refuse to deal with the matter on the basis that the facts of the matter were in dispute (cf s 269 of the Mental Health Act 2000).  None of the psychiatrists regarded these disputes of fact as being significant to their opinion.  Dr Grant gave his view at tt 1-18-19 and t 1-20 on 29 September 2016.  His view was that Mr Greenfield was conflating events.  He said it was not uncommon “in people who have been very psychotic to get this type of confusion in trying to work out timeframes and exactly what happened when” – tt 1-20-21.  Dr Voita thought that Mr Greenfield’s giving different versions might have been conscious and unconscious minimising or justifying of his behaviour – t 1-26 of 5 December 2016.  Dr van de Hoef thought that either memory difficulties or minimising could account for the differing versions – t 1-40 of 5 December 2016.
89. [89]
    I will add that it is almost second nature to a lawyer to suspect dishonesty where there are differing versions, and that it was certainly something that occurred to me when I read the reports prior to hearing.  I continue to suspect that Mr Greenfield has been deliberately dishonest about matters such as the extent of his drug abuse over time and his threats of violence towards the deceased.  It seems that Mr Greenfield was dishonest about events relating to the killing itself, and in particular how Ms Wallis’s body ended up in the bath.  I must say, however, that having viewed the recording of the walk-through conducted by police and the record of interview I lost any scepticism about the matters bearing on his state of mind at the time of the killing.  I found those recordings very compelling evidence that Mr Greenfield was suffering from a significant psychosis at the time of the offending.  I note that Dr Grant described him as below average intelligence, and Dr van de Hoef as of average intelligence.  I note that he was in the High Secure Unit for a long period of time under Dr Voita’s care.  I just do not see that it is possible that Mr Greenfield was in some way pretending to have a mental illness or that in some way he pretended to have been in the grip of a psychosis (albeit intoxicated) at the time of the killing.

Advice of Assisting Psychiatrists

90. [90]
    Dr Reddan advised that it was safe to conclude that at the time of the offending Mr Greenfield was suffering from delusions that his de facto wife had been repeatedly unfaithful to him.  He was so preoccupied with these delusions that he misinterpreted things that were going on in the environment around him (his incorporation of the police officers and Correctional officers into his delusions are good examples of this). Dr Reddan thought he was suffering from delusional perceptions.  That is, he would see real things, perhaps scratches on the police station desk, and perceive them as being the brand of his wife’s horse.  He would see an image on a computer or phone and perceive it as being his wife in a pornographic movie.  Dr Reddan thought that these delusions were the result of a psychosis.  She was not sure whether it was a schizophreniform psychosis or a delusional disorder, but did not think that mattered.  Dr Reddan saw the threatening behaviour – to shoot the horses and driving at Ms Wallis – as showing how dominating of Mr Greenfield’s mind these delusions and beliefs were.  I would interpolate that domination of his thinking is very evident both in the police record of interview and the video-recorded walk-through of the house with police after the killing.

91. [91]
    Dr Reddan thought one of the most significant effects of amphetamines apropos this case was that they cause rage.  She said when she listened to Mr Greenfield talking to the police after the killing she heard rage.  She thought strangling was a very “rage-full way to kill someone”.  
92. [92]
    Dr Reddan thought the relevant capacity for my consideration was the capacity to control his actions and she was reluctant to express an opinion as to whether or not the illness he suffered, shorn of the intoxication, led to a substantial impairment of that capacity.  Dr Reddan did not think that the illness was substantially impairing his ability to know he ought not do the act at the time of the killing.
93. [93]
    Dr Sundin agreed with the idea that the evidence did not support Mr Greenfield being deprived of the capacity to know he ought not do the act.  Nor did she think that capacity was substantially impaired.  She thought that the relevant capacity for my consideration was the capacity to control his acts.  Dr Sundin was also reluctant to express an opinion about this, but she did conclude that by the time of the killing it may well be that the illness alone had substantially impaired Mr Greenfield’s capacity to control his actions.

Unsoundness

[94] The only evidence before me is that at the time of the offending Mr Greenfield was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and I accept that; it is in accordance with the advice of my assisting psychiatrists.  Further, the only evidence before me is that Mr Greenfield was intoxicated at the time of the offending and that that intoxication was voluntary and affected his state of mind considerably.  In those circumstances my finding is that he was of sound mind at the time of all the offending.  The law in Queensland is that if a person is voluntarily intoxicated at the time of offending, and that intoxication has any effect on their state of mind at the time of the offending, they are not allowed to rely upon a defence of unsoundness of mind – s 27 of the Criminal Code Queensland.

Diminished Responsibility

95. [95]
    The real question for my decision is whether or not Mr Greenfield was of diminished responsibility at the time of the killing.  That partial defence only applies in relation to the killing, not the other offences.  
96. [96]
    In Re Wilson^[3] Boddice J said this about diminished responsibility:

    19. [19]‘Diminished responsibility’ is defined in the Schedule of the Act as ‘the state of abnormality of mind described in the Criminal Code, section 304A’.
    20. [20]Section 304A of the Criminal Code provides:

97. [97]
    All three reporting psychiatrists support the idea that one of Mr Greenfield’s capacities was substantially impaired due to illness alone at the time of the killing.  However, there is no unanimity between them as to which capacity it was.  Dr Grant thought that both the capacity to know he ought not do the act and the capacity to control his actions were impaired.  Dr Voita thought that the capacity to control his actions was impaired, and Dr van de Hoef thought that the capacity to know he ought not do the act was impaired.  However, she was prepared to concede in her evidence that it might well have been the capacity to control himself which was relevant as well as, or instead of, the capacity to know what he did was wrong.^[4]
98. [98]
    In my view, the facts given by the defendant (in all their various versions), incline me to accept the view of Dr Voita: ie., the relevant capacity which was lost was the capacity to control his actions.  I will explain my reasons for that conclusion.
99. [99]
    Mr Greenfield was suffering a severe psychiatric illness but somehow managing to continue his work and other life activities.  He was under strain due to back pain, lack of sleep and financial difficulties.  I accept that he believed, with delusional force, that his wife was having an affair.  One main focus of his thinking in this regard were the electronic devices in the house.  He thought his wife could track him using his mobile phone.  He monitored her internet use as a way of “catching her in the act”.  He thought he saw pornographic videos of his wife having sex with other people on electronic devices.  Perhaps due to all the difficulties in his life, but no doubt partly due to the fact that he was ingesting large quantities of narcotic medication, the defendant was unable to obtain an erection.  He was attempting to sexually arouse himself in bed, or in the bedroom, with his wife when his thoughts became overwhelmingly focussed on her using her phone in relation to her infidelity.  Whether it was because he thought she was texting her lover to mock his failure to obtain an erection, or whether it was because he thought he saw pornographic vision on her phone probably does not matter.  He had recently ingested amphetamine, the effects of which can be to intensify delusions, stimulate someone to act, and to induce rage.  In all these circumstances, he killed his wife.  
100. [100]
     When speaking to the police and to Drs Voita and Grant he said he lost control.  In my view that is what is likely to have happened and Dr Voita is correct in identifying the capacity of loss of control as the one which I should focus on in considering this question of diminished responsibility.
101. [101]
     I do not think that Mr Greenfield was deprived of the capacity to know he ought not do the act of killing his wife. He says when he realised what he had done he attempted to resuscitate his wife. He attempted to clean the bedroom so it did not look like a “crime scene” (his words). He said to Dr Voita that at the very time he was strangling his wife, “I knew I wasn’t doing the right thing.”^[5] He told Dr Voita he knew at the time he strangled his wife he would go to prison for killing his wife. He blocked access to the bedroom door with the substantial bedside tables. He was concerned to ensure his daughter did not see her mother. He was concerned to escape the house before his father-in-law discovered what he had done. He was concerned to suicide in response to what he had done. These are the actions of someone who does understand the nature of his act.

102. [102]
     I turn to the provisions of s 304A of the Criminal Code.  There are two matters for my consideration.  First, the state of abnormality of mind spoken about in s 304A is a state of mind which arises from something endogenous or inherent in the defendant whether it is an illness, injury or another inherent cause, such as “arrested or retarded development of mind”.  It does not include something external, such as the effect produced by, relevantly to this case, opiates, marijuana and amphetamines.  Second, the inherent or endogenous abnormality of mind must be such as to substantially impair the person’s capacity (in this case) to control his actions.  The meaning of “substantially” in this context has been the subject of conflicting decisions here and in the United Kingdom.
103. [103]
     In this case the first of the questions is easily answered.  I think that Dr van de Hoef’s description of Mr Greenfield’s developing psychosis is very helpful to understanding it.  The onset of the psychosis was as she said “insidious”.  Although some friends and family noticed that things were wrong, indeed seriously wrong, somehow Mr Greenfield was able to grossly keep his life intact: he was able to work, drive, share the child-care responsibility, etc.  This continued right up until the day of the killing.  However, it was clear I think that his mental state had been worsening in the three months preceding the killing.  His incorporation of the police and Correctional Services officers, and the police desk and window into his delusions after his arrest really shows how psychotic he had become by the date of the killing.  And it is evident that his illness is recalcitrant.  He still experiences the delusions which influenced his mind at the time of the killing, notwithstanding years have passed and he has been treated with increasingly significant antipsychotic drugs, in increasing doses over those years.  There is no doubt then that at the time of the killing Mr Greenfield suffered from an abnormality of mind, ie., paranoid schizophrenia.  There is no doubt that that was an abnormality of mind which proceeded from disease and was thus endogenous or inherent, as required by s 304A of the Criminal Code.
104. [104]
     Mr Greenfield was significantly intoxicated at the time of the killing and that intoxication was likely to have significant effects on him including: making his delusions more intense;^[6] by its stimulating effect, making him more likely to act on the delusional beliefs;^[7] increasing his emotional arousal,^[8] and potentially inducing rage.^[9]  Can it be said that the inherent abnormality of mind (schizophrenia) was such as to substantially impair his capacity to control his actions at the time of the killing?  
105. [105]
     The House of Lords considered this question in R v Dietschmann.^[10]  In that case a man suffering from an adjustment disorder and depressed grief reaction became very drunk and violently killed a man he accused of having shown disrespect towards his aunt.  The defendant had been very close to his aunt and the adjustment disorder and grief reaction was in consequence of her death.  The finding of the House of Lords was that:

“… if the defendant satisfies the jury that, notwithstanding the alcohol he had consumed and its effect on him, his abnormality of mind substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts in doing the killing, the jury should find him not guilty of murder but (under subsection 3) guilty of manslaughter.  I take this view because I think that in referring to substantial impairment of mental responsibility the subsection does not require the abnormality of mind to be the sole cause of the defendant’s acts in doing the killing.  In my opinion, even if the defendant would not have killed if he had not have taken drink, the causative effect of the drink does not necessarily prevent an abnormality of mind suffered by the defendant from substantially impairing his mental responsibility for his fatal acts.” – p 1217.

106. [106]
     In addressing s 304A of the Criminal Code the problem is not to be approached as if the question is whether it was the intoxication or the illness which caused the defendant to act as he did.^[11]  The question is merely whether the abnormality of mind substantially impaired the defendant’s mental responsibility for his fatal acts.  Where a defendant is intoxicated at the time of killing the effect of the alcohol or drugs should disregarded, and the question asked whether the inherent matters amounted to such an abnormality of mind as to substantially impair the defendant’s mental responsibility.
107. [107]
     Dietschmann was recently considered with apparent approval in R v Golds.^[12]  The English Supreme Court also revisited the question of the meaning of “substantially” in R v Golds.  The case law in respect of the meaning of this word had shown a division.  Some Courts had interpreted substantially as meaning to a significant degree in the sense of, for example, she enjoyed a substantial income or she ate a substantial dinner.^[13]  Other Courts had held that substantially meant anything more than the “merely trivial”.  Golds determined that it was the first of these interpretations which was correct; the word substantially was “indicating a serious degree of impairment of mental responsibility” – [12] and [28].  This accords with the serious effect that a finding of diminished responsibility has: reducing a charge of murder to manslaughter – [29] and [36].^[14]  Substantially impaired was held to be synonymous with other phrases, such as “a serious degree of impairment”; “not total impairment but substantial”, or “something far wrong” – [40].

108. [108]
     In my view, Mr Greenfield’s paranoid schizophrenia did substantially impair his capacity to control his actions at the time of the murder and he is thus entitled to the partial defence of diminished responsibility.  There is no doubt that Mr Greenfield suffered from a severe psychosis at the time of the offending and that its effect was to make him paranoid and morbidly jealous concerning his wife.  
109. [109]
     Dr Grant’s evidence was that the psychosis alone made him enraged by what he believed to be his wife’s behaviour.^[15]  There is more to psychosis than just a false belief.  The illness intensifies the thinking process and causes people to do things they would not normally do.  They act on the basis of their psychotic beliefs and the emotions that are attached to them in a way in which they would not act were they not psychotic.^[16]  That is why psychiatrists often refer to thinking as being of “delusional intensity”.  Dr van de Hoef attempted to explain the same thing, saying that the illness did not just produce beliefs in Mr Greenfield; it altered his mood so that he became emotional, irritable and paranoid.  He was verbally and emotionally violent, cruel, intimidating and threatening, in her view, because of the illness.^[17]  
110. [110]
     The paranoid beliefs and delusions of infidelity with all the associated emotion were part of the illness.  The intoxication no doubt played a significant role in Mr Greenfield’s state of mind at the time of the killing.  I accept that it may well have intensified his delusions, caused him to act on them, and caused him to become enraged.  I accept in fact that, but for his ingesting the amphetamines, he might not have killed on that night.  Certainly on other occasions, for example when he drove at his wife and then braked suddenly, he had physically threatened her, but not harmed her.  However, even if it is the case that Mr Greenfield would not have killed but for his intoxication with amphetamines, that is not the legal question.  The legal question is whether or not his psychosis substantially impaired his capacity to control himself.  In my view it did.  The effect is that he cannot be tried for murder, but for manslaughter only.

Risk

[111] I will note, particularly for any sentencing judge, that all the psychiatrists who reported to this Court made mention of Mr Greenfield’s continuing delusional state, his lack of insight and how dangerous his illness is for, although it had been developing for some time and had become quite severe by the time of the killing, it had essentially remained hidden.  I particularly included the reporting psychiatrists’ comments as to risk in the community – see [36], [37], [59] and [81] above to emphasise this matter.  I would also add that all the psychiatrists seemed to me to regard it of great significance that Mr Greenfield confessed to asphyxiating his father.  The method of killing was similar to that which he used to kill his wife, and I think part of the significance of this is that he has now broken the taboo against killing on two occasions.

Orders

[112]  My formal orders will be:

1. The defendant was not of unsound mind at the time of any of the offending.
2. The defendant may be tried only for manslaughter, not murder, in relation to the killing of June Danette Wallis.

3. The defendant is fit for trial.
4. Subject to paragraph 2 above, the criminal matters the subject of this reference ought to proceed according to law.