The Court returned a special verdict of act proven but not criminally responsible under s 31 of the Mental Health and Cognitive Impairment Forensic Provisions Act 2020 (NSW) in respect of a murder charge, where both Crown and defence experts agreed the accused was experiencing a relapse of treatment-resistant schizophrenia at the time of the killing and could not reason with a moderate degree of sense and composure about the wrongfulness of his actions. The Court accepted that post-offence conduct of fleeing the scene and concealing the weapon was not inconsistent with the defence, relying on expert evidence that such behaviour reflected a persecuted reaction rather than intact reasoning capacity. The accused was ordered to be detained and referred to the Mental Health Review Tribunal under ss 33(1)(b) and 34 of the Act.
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