Son dies after horror attack on mother

A postmortem examination is to be conducted today on the body of a 41-year-old man who died after allegedly committing a horrific attack on his elderly mother, including biting off her finger and gouging her eyes.

It was revealed yesterday that the man died suddenly while in custody at the Henry Bennett Centre, a secure psychiatric unit in Hamilton.

His death on Wednesday night is believed to have been from natural causes.

The man was remanded in custody to a secure unit at the centre after he was arrested and charged with the attack on his 73-year-old mother in Rotorua on Monday morning.

The centre, a regional mental health facility run by the Waikato District Health Board at Waikato Hospital, was asked to prepare a psychiatric evaluation of the man before he appeared in court next week.

The health board said yesterday that the cause of death was still unknown, but there appeared to be no suspicious circumstances.

Acting Waikato Hospital manager Chris Harris said that the hospital's cardiac arrest response team was called to treat the man but was unable to resuscitate him.

The board said the man had been in a single room in the secure unit and his condition actively monitored. It would not reveal if he had visitors.

The Lakes District Health Board had already launched an investigation into the attack on the man's mother after confirming that he was known to its mental health service in Rotorua.

Police said the man suffered from schizophrenia. Medical practitioners, including one of his doctors, had voiced concerns about the man's deteriorating mental state in the days leading up to the attack.

The Lakes board said the results of its investigation would be reported to the Ministry of Health.

A team of four was expected to spend weeks on the review, looking at several volumes of clinical notes.

The ministry said that the man's death would not change the investigation and it would wait to hear from the board before taking any action.

The woman, who will possibly go blind, was yesterday reported to be stable in Rotorua Hospital. Further details of her condition were not being released at her request, but she is understood to have lost the sight in at least one eye.

Her right index finger could not be found when she was discovered seriously injured in her Ngongotaha home.

Police said she had been subjected to severe beatings and had a bed and chest of drawers piled on top of her during the attack. She was found a day after it began after her cries for help went unheard. Her son was found barricaded in a toilet.