Trial jurors must decide: was Dixon mad or bad?

Bad or mad? That's the question for the jury in the Antonie Ronnie Dixon murder trial.

In his closing address in the High Court at Auckland yesterday, Dixon's lawyer Barry Hart said his client was a very ill man with a major mental disorder.

"The Crown is saying that he is totally bad and he certainly isn't mad," Mr Hart told the jury.

The prosecution has said many of Dixon's symptoms were merely him "playing crazy".

But Mr Hart said there was a wealth of evidence that showed Dixon had a mental problem going back years.

Dixon, 36, denies the attempted murders of Renee Gunbie and Simonne Butler, who were mutilated by samurai sword in Pipiroa on January 21, 2003, and the murder of James Te Aute, who was shot with a home-made sub-machine gun on the same day in East Auckland.

The Crown accepts Dixon had a severe personality disorder and suffered paranoia but maintains he embarked on a P-fuelled crime spree knowing exactly what he was doing and that it was wrong.

"His personality was the powder keg and the P was the match," Crown prosecutor Simon Moore earlier told the jury.

But Mr Hart said Dixon was not a calculating predator that had laid in wait for his victims.

He was a man who had been ill for many years and had probably "slipped through the cracks".

Mr Hart said that in his completely unbalanced mind, Dixon believed he was being followed by 747s, was being tracked by satellites and had a transmitter embedded in his body.

One of the most powerful witnesses, Mr Hart said, was Simonne Butler, who told the court that at the time of the attack, Dixon was "psycho" and irrational, saying God had told him to sacrifice her.

"Does that suggest to you the comments and actions of a sane man?" Mr Hart asked the jury.

Earlier, Mr Moore characterised Dixon as a nasty, angry man, high on P and unable to control his violence.

He would go to any lengths, Mr Moore said, to avoid going back to jail, and insanity seemed his best option.

Mr Moore said that in his opening address Mr Hart had told the jury they would hear evidence from Ms Butler and Ms Gunbie about Dixon's "involuntary consumption of drugs" before he attacked them.

But Ms Gunbie did not give evidence and there was no admissible evidence of involuntary drug use.

Mr Moore said that in a letter from prison, Dixon had "instructed" Ms Gunbie to say that Ms Butler had spiked his drink with P.

"It ties in with that whole picture of someone who is extremely enthusiastic about manipulating the process," he told the jury.

"He will do anything he can in terms of a defence and if that means bringing people to lie, well that doesn't worry him at all."

The trial continues today.