A man who was ruled insane after committing a high-profile killing more than two decades ago has gone on to kill another person.<\/p>\n
The case, which is shrouded in secrecy, occurred “against a backdrop of apparent significant failures in the mental health system”, a High Court judge says.<\/p>\n
RNZ can exclusively reveal the man – who was made a special patient under the Mental Health Act after his first killing – was recently found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity for a second time after killing someone he believed was possessed.<\/p>\n
To be released into the community after being designated a special patient, requires the sign off of the Minister of Health, the Attorney General and the Director of Mental Health. The man was released more than a decade ago, and later had his status changed to being a patient under the Mental Health Act.<\/p>\n
At the time of his second killing he was subject to a Community Treatment Order.<\/p>\n
Health NZ confirmed to RNZ an external review of the care the patient received leading up to their offending was underway. Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey said he had been told about the case by health officials, but declined to comment further.<\/p>\n
The man and the victim’s family have lost a bid for name suppression in the High Court. In declining suppression, Justice Karen Grau said while the decision had been “very difficult”, public interest must prevail.<\/p>\n
“There is rightly a high degree of public interest in learning of the circumstances in which a person who has been released into the community under the supervision of mental health services has gone on to kill again,’ she said.<\/p>\n
RNZ is unable to publish details regarding either killings as the decision to lift name suppression has now been taken to the Court of Appeal, meaning the man and his victim can not be identified until the appeal has been determined.<\/p>\n
However, RNZ can report the man has a long history of mental health issues. After the brutal killing more than 20 years ago, he was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity. A judge ordered that he be detained in a special secure unit and not freed without the health minister’s authority.<\/p>\n
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A man who was ruled insane after committing a high-profile killing more than two decades ago has gone on to kill another person. The case, which is shrouded in secrecy, occurred “against a backdrop of apparent significant failures in the mental health system”, a High Court judge says. RNZ can exclusively reveal the man – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13418,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13416\/revisions\/13418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}