By Rebecca Peppiatt and Louise Rennie
A man who broke into a home in Ellenbrook in 2021 and sexually assaulted a seven-year-old girl has been found guilty after failing to argue he was too mentally impaired to be held accountable for his crime.
Callum Ferris Davies, from Oakfield, was 25 years old when he climbed through a stranger’s bathroom window just after midnight on December 27 three years ago.
Callum Ferris Davis.Credit: Courtesy of court sketch artist Anne Barnetson.
He entered the bedroom of a little girl and put his hands over her mouth, taped it shut and then choked her before he sexually abused her.
She lost consciousness, but remembered enough to tell her parents the next morning and then police, leading to Davies’ arrest.
He admitted the above actions on the first day of his Perth District Court trial last month.
Davies, a Bachelor of Arts graduate from Edith Cowan University, has autism spectrum disorder and was employed as an apprentice chef at the time.
He told police in a recorded interview that was played to the court during his trial that he had jumped the fence and climbed into the house to try to steal “anything that could fit in a backpack that was of value”.
Inspector Hamish McKenzie headed up the investigation into the sexual assault.
He said he had no intention of committing the sexual assault and told the police he didn’t end up stealing anything because he was “quite emotionally distraught after the whole thing”.
“I don’t know why I did what I did,” he said.
Davies pleaded not guilty on mental impairment to impeding another person’s breathing and sexual penetration and indecent dealing of a child under 13, as well as aggravated home burglary.
His judge-alone trial before Judge David Maclean began with his defence team claiming Davies is “deprived of capacity to control his actions” and “deprived of capacity to know that he ought not do the acts”.
While state prosecutors told Judge David Maclean they conceded Davies was suffering from psychosis at the time of the incident, the severity of the psychosis was the issue of the trial.
“It’s necessary for him to prove total deprivation, not mere impairment, at the time of offending,” they told the court.
“The evidence will show he was indeed able to control himself, he knew what he was doing was wrong.”
Day one of the evidence saw the court watch a recorded interview of the little girl telling police she wasn’t sure if she had a nightmare or if it was real the day after the incident.
“This man came; my mum didn’t know; he sticky-taped my mouth; I pulled it down, but then he covered my mouth, so I couldn’t breathe; I can’t remember what was after that,” she said.
She told police Davies repeatedly told her to be quiet and said, “I know this is embarrassing” before assaulting her.
Judge Maclean on Wednesday found him guilty of sexually penetrating a child under 13, impeding a person’s breathing, indecent assault and aggravated burglary.
Davies will be sentenced on January 31.