Gunnedah: Teen charged with 10yo’s murder learns fate

A Sydney judge has today handed down her verdict against a teen accused of murdering a 10-year-old in country NSW

A teen charged with murdering a 10-year-old girl in country NSW has been found not criminally responsible after a judge found she was hearing voices at the time “coaxing her to kill”.

Police arrested the teen, now 15, and charged her with murder in July 2020 after the younger girl was found dead inside a Gunnedah farmhouse during the school holidays.

Acting Justice Carolyn Simpson told the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday that following the killing – the details of which are suppressed – the teen gathered some belongings and walked to a neighbouring property.

“The accused took a bag she had previously packed with clothing and left the house, she walked to a property some distance away and asked the occupant to take her to the police station,” the judge said.

“She told the occupant she had killed (the younger girl), the occupant of the property telephoned police who attended shortly thereafter.

“A search of the accused’s bedroom was conducted and a number of items seized, these included a diary and books in which the accused had written stories and drawings.”

Emergency crews at the scene.

A five-day murder trial had been set down against the teen after she pleaded not guilty this week, but prosecutors asked she be dealt with under the mental health act when they were handed a medical report at the 11th hour.

Two psychiatrists – one of whom had been called by the Crown – had assessed the teen and both had diagnosed her with schizophrenia, the court heard.

One of the experts had found she had untreated schizophrenia at the time of the killing and was hearing voices “coaxing her to kill”.

The court was told the teen could not reason whether what she was doing was wrong and was also having delusions that her life was not real.

Acting Justice Simpson said she was satisfied the evidence in the case supported the view of the two psychiatrists and returned a verdict against the teen of act proven but not criminally responsible.

The judge ordered she be detained indefinitely in a youth justice centre and that she be handed over into the control of a mental health tribunal.

Crown prosecutor Les Carr SC read out a victim impact statement from the younger girl’s mother, who said she had been forced to self-medicate on alcohol and had also been verbally abused by her family.

“My brain shut down to protect me from the unprotectable, from events so depraved they belong in a horror movie,” the mother said.

“But this is not a movie, this is not the life I want, but it’s the life I must now live.

“I must endure vicious resentment and verbal accusatory attacks from (the younger girl’s) father who calls me a murderer.

“A day after my daughter died his mother burst through the door, pushed me over and called me a murderer.

“A life where my family is ripped apart and we barely speak, broken and wounded, changed forever, a life where I avoid family to not be reminded that there is one person missing, never to return.”