Rebecca Butterfield: Voices told violent inmate to attack guard
So violent is Rebecca Butterfield that she is being jailed despite serving her sentence for stabbing an inmate 33 times. Experts said in court today that ‘voices’ had told her to launch a fresh attack on a prison guard.
Inner West
Don't miss out on the headlines from Inner West. Followed categories will be added to My News.
One of the state’s most violent inmates “heard voices telling her to attack guards” when she began a food fight behind bars, with the severity of her mental health issues laid bare in court today.
Rebecca Jane Butterfield is considered so dangerous by the State Government that she is currently remanded behind bars on an extended detention order, despite serving out her manslaughter sentence for the frenzied stabbing of another inmate 33 times.
Butterfield, who has a long history of violence behind bars, has had a charge of assaulting a guard thrown out on mental health grounds after police alleged she attacked him during breakfast service last October.
The Supreme Court, in ordering her continued detention four years ago, had found she would self-harm in a bid to lure guards into her cell before attacking them.
The allegation this time around is that Butterfield was performing breakfast duties when she hurled a plate full of food and a number of apples at the guard on October 3.
Her lawyer argued she “hears voices through that sound system telling her to attack prison officials and self harm” so real she is compelled to act on them.
“She is adamant they are real,” a psychologist’s report read in court stated.
Burwood Local Court heard the voices have kept Butterfield up at night for years and they are loudest while she is locked in her cell.
When released to serve breakfast on the day in question, the court heard, she found the voices overwhelming to the extent that she allegedly assaulted the prison guard.
The NSW police had opposed letting the case go without criminal punishment as Butterfield was a high-risk offender.
Magistrate Lisa Stapleton considered the seriousness of her schizophrenia and personality disorder severe enough to warrant she not be dealt with under the criminal code, instead ordering her to complete her prescribed mental health treatment behind bars.
News tips? Email: anton.rose@news.com.au