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A mentally ill man sobbed as a court yesterday heard it was "unconscionable" he had been charged with murdering a fellow patient at Rotorua Hospital's psychiatric ward.
The man, whose name is suppressed, allegedly fatally injured 51-year-old Moira Albert on April 13 - the same day mental health workers found he needed urgent in-patient care and organised his admission to the ward.
His lawyer, Peter Williams, QC, told Rotorua District Court the man was a schizophrenic and psychotic and was suffering hallucinations when he attacked Ms Albert, gouging and punching her in the stomach and causing her to fall to the ground.
She died a day later of a blood clot on the brain.
Mr Williams said the case was "very, very tragic" but the man had had no intent to kill Ms Albert, who also suffered severe mental illness and had been in psychiatric care most of her life.
"Are we going to continue this parody that this is a murder case, when no one believes it?" Mr Williams said.
He criticised police for the prosecution, calling it "unjust and unfair".
He added that even the Crown agreed the appropriate charge was manslaughter.
Mr Williams wanted the charge reduced to assault and called on the two justices of the peace presiding over the depositions hearing to end an "unconscionable" prosecution.
The JPs agreed to reduce the charge to manslaughter, but not assault, and remanded the man to the continued care of Waikato Hospital's secure psychiatric unit, the Henry Bennett Centre.
Police refused to comment on the appropriateness of the original murder charge, other than to say procedure was followed.
"When you have an incident, you go on the information you have with the instruction of the Crown solicitor, which is what we did in this case," investigation head Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Loper told the Herald.
Crown prosecutor Amanda Gordon said in court: "It is not accepted by the informant that this has been a malicious prosecution or abuse of process in any way."
Lakes District Health Board was also criticised for failing to adequately supervise the mentally ill man when placing him in a room with Ms Albert.
The board began an internal investigation in the wake of the incident but would not respond to Mr Williams' criticisms yesterday.
"It would be entirely inappropriate for us to make any comment at this time," board spokeswoman Sue Wilkie said.
The man is due to reappear in court in February.
