Alleged Hillier triple murderer Steven Graham Peet is not mentally incompetent and confessed to his crime, DPP says
THE Hillier triple murder trial will resume in two weeks’ time — and the killer’s claims of mental incompetence will be met with sworn evidence he confessed to the crime six times.
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THE Hillier triple murder trial will resume in two weeks’ time — and the killer’s claims of mental incompetence will be met with sworn evidence he confessed to the crime six times.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court was told Steven Graham Peet’s beleaguered trial will be more than a “battle of the experts” between mental health specialists.
Tim Preston, prosecuting, said he would call other witnesses to refute Peet’s claim he was in a “disassociative state” when Amber Rose Rigney and Korey Lee Mitchell were slain.
“We will call the crime scene examiner, we will call other witnesses to whom the accused gave statements that (go against) the assumptions made by the expert,” he said.
“I do not see there will be a need to call police officers — aside from those to whom Peet has made admissions.”
Peet, 31, pleaded guilty to murdering Adeline Yvette Wilson-Rigney, 28, at Hillier, north of Gawler, in May 2016.
When the trial began, prosecutors alleged Peet confessed to having murdered all three members of the family no less than six times in the hours and days after the crime.
Peet, however, denied murdering Amber and Korey, claiming he was in a “disassociative state” when they were bound with tape, gagged with socks and strangled with cable ties.
That claim, in August last year, threw Peet’s trial into disarray and further traumatised the children’s extended families.
Amber and Korey’s grandparents, Stephen Egberts and Janet Wells, said they had lost faith in prosecutors who had shown them no empathy and “misled” their family.
After The Advertiser reported the couple’s concerns, Director of Public Prosecutions Adam Kimber SC agreed to meet with them.
On Wednesday, counsel for Peet said they would be ready to resume the trial on either January 29, as planned, or “a few days after”.
They said they were waiting for another report from forensic psychologist Luke Broomhall — who first raised the issue of disassociation — that was needed to finalise their case.
Mr Preston said many of the usual aspects of a criminal trial would not be aired in Peet’s case, with prosecution and defence counsel having “agreed” on that evidence.
“It will be my submission that this is a case that calls for written submissions (after the witnesses’ evidence) rather than oral submissions,” he said.
“These are issues of mental incompetence and specific intent ... the court would be better served by considered, written submissions.”
Justice Malcolm Blue remanded Peet in custody for two weeks.