A man accused of stabbing two women at The Warehouse store in Tauranga has been ruled fit to plead, after a psychiatric assessment.
Fantahun Tadesse Molla, aged 24, unemployed and of no fixed abode, appeared in the Tauranga District Court yesterday, after two weeks in the Henry Bennett Centre, a secure psychiatric unit in the Waikato.
Counsel Tony Balme asked Judge Ian Thomas for a further remand to sort out a preliminary hearing date. He accepted that Molla would go to Waikeria Prison, where any health needs would be attended to under the advice of the Bennett centre.
The judge remanded Molla in custody until December 11.
Molla, who stood quietly in the dock, faces charges of attempting to murder mother and daughter Laraine Merle Horscroft, 55, and Tracey Anne Brindhaban, 32, and of wounding Warehouse employee Christopher Mark Gleason, 23, with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Fit to plead say doctors
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