Rhys Michael Austin will never face trial for the choking murder of his girlfriend Bianca Faith Girven after court finds he was of unsound mind

A MAN who claims a computer god led him to choke his girlfriend - a young Brisbane mother - has won an appeal to never face trial for the murder.

A MAN who was charged with the murder of his girlfriend, a young Brisbane mother, four years ago will never face trial, after a court found him of unsound mind at the time.

The Court of Appeal heard how months after his arrest for the murder of Bianca Faith Girven, 22, at Mount Gravatt in 2010, Rhys Michael Austin told a psychiatrist he had a “mission to kill”.

Austin, who had paranoid schizophrenia, told another psychiatrist a computer god led him to believe he should kill his girlfriend, whom he admitted choking for 10 minutes.

The Attorney-General has lost an appeal against a Mental Health Court decision that found Austin was of unsound mind at the time of the killing on March 30, 2010. It ordered proceedings against Austin for Ms Girven’s murder be discontinued and no further proceedings be taken against him for acts ­constituting that offence.

The Attorney-General dis­agreed and appealed those ­decisions on five grounds.

The Court of Appeal heard Austin, who initially told police a false story, first admitted to killing Ms Girven 14 months after her death and nine months after his arrest.

He told a psychiatrist how he had semi-planned the killing and thought he should strangle her. The court heard he told how his hand hit her in the face and he went behind her and put her in a choke-hold for about 10 minutes, only releasing her when she stopped breathing.

Austin, then 22, then panicked and drove her to his ­parents’ place.

The psychiatrist said Austin had psychotic symptoms, ­including delusional beliefs about a computer god that wanted him to kill his girlfriend to progress along a path to becoming a god himself.

“After the killing, he concocted and maintained for 14 months an unconvincing, false story, which he told to his family, police and treating clinicians,” the court decision said.

Austin initially told police they were in his van at a carpark near Mount Gravatt lookout when someone dragged Ms Girven from the vehicle and he was hit in the head.

The MHC accepted psychiatric evidence that Austin killed Ms Girven while in a concealed delusional state and that there was a psychotic ­explanation for the killing.