Mathew Flame trial: Angry Anderson’s son’s killer thought friend was demon
The man accused of fatally bashing Angry Anderson’s son genuinely thought his friend was a demon who was trying to harm him, a judge summarising the defence and crown cases has told a jury.
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The man accused of fatally bashing Angry Anderson’s son genuinely thought his friend was a demon who was trying to harm him, a judge summarising the defence and crown cases has told a jury.
Mathew Flame, now 22, has pleaded not guilty to murdering his close mate Liam Anderson, 26, after taking 10 ecstasy pills and smoking cannabis during a bender on Sydney’s northern beaches in November 2018.
The trial has been told they were kicking on at a friend’s house before Flame started to hallucinate and brutally bashed Mr Anderson to death in a small Queenscliff park because he thought he was a demon “who just wanted me dead”.
Flame’s defence team wants the jury to return a verdict of not guilty by way of mental illness but prosecutors have argued he had a healthy mind at the time of the alleged murder and that his psychosis was sparked by his voluntary drug use.
The jury has been told Flame has since been diagnosed with a schizophrenic disorder, while he was behind bars on remand last year.
Justice Richard Button told the jury on Friday both sides in the case accepted that Flame thought his friend was a demon trying to harm him but that there was an “important point of controversy” over what caused that psychosis.
“Apart from anything else, it seems to be agreed that the accused believed not only that the deceased was trying to harm him but also indeed that the deceased was a demon,” the judge said.
“But has it been proven on balance that arose from a disease of mind from which the accused was suffering early on the morning of November 4, 2018, as the defence contends?
“Or did it arise simply from the effect of a mixture of alcohol, cannabis and a very large quantity of MDMA, informally known as ecstasy, upon a mind that at that stage was otherwise healthy as the prosecution contends?”
Mr Button also explained to the jury that an accused person charged with murder would remain in detention even if they were found not guilty by way of mental illness.
“Obviously, such persons who are found not guilty on the ground of mental illness are not simply at liberty to return to the community, especially if they have killed someone as here,” he said.
“Rather than being punished, persons found not guilty on the ground of mental illness are indefinitely detained and thereafter are only able to be at liberty in the community again once a specialist tribunal is satisfied – if ever – that they do not present a significant risk to any person, including themselves.”
Liam Anderson is the son of Rose Tattoo frontman Gary Stephen “Angry” Anderson, who was in court earlier in the week to watch the proceedings.
The court has heard Liam Anderson was trying to help Flame when he got into trouble towards the end of the night.
The trial continues.
October 22: Liam Anderson’s accused killer was ‘ranting about Satan’, court told
The young man accused of fatally bashing Angry Anderson’s son told police they were disobeying the book of Satan when he was arrested, a court has been told.
Matthew Flame, now 22, has pleaded not guilty to murdering his mate Liam Anderson, 26, after an ecstasy and cannabis-fuelled bender in a small Queenscliff park on Sydney’s northern beaches on the morning of November 4, 2018.
The trial was told on Thursday that Flame was taken to Manly police station with his fingernails, arms and legs smeared in blood when he started ranting and warned police officers “you cannot disobey Satan, it is not in his book, you can’t do this to me”.
Custody assistant Constable John Kennedy took notes of what Flame was saying as he and his colleagues placed paper bags over his hands, replaced his clothes with a jumpsuit and put him in Cell 2 in the station’s lower levels.
The court heard Flame was yelling about the devil and told police “I’m innocent, you deserve torture, you lied to Satan, you cannot disobey Satan” and “Satan is not happy you are doing this … he is not happy you are doing this, especially to Mathew Flame.”
However, as the hours passed Flame seemingly became more coherent while in custody and he began to ask police if anybody had been hurt, the court was told.
In an audio recording played to the jury, Flame stops talking about Satan, asks about his mother and tells officers he had not done anything wrong.
“You will not believe what happened last night, I need a f***ing lawyer and sh** dude,” he said. “Is he saying that I killed somebody?”
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In the audio, an emotional Flame tells Constable Kennedy and his boss Sergeant Sarah Bassett that he had taken ecstasy and when he smoked cannabis towards the end of the night he began to hallucinate during a hellish trip.
“(I had a) psychiatric trip or something, I punched this cone … and I looked at my mate and just everything went weird, my mate’s name is Liam … Anderson, Angry Anderson’s son,” he said.
“(I) basically just started tripping out … it may sound crazy seriously but the drugs affected me in a certain way, they took me somewhere.”
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In a video played to the court Flame, dressed in a ripped jumpsuit and with his eyes closed after being pepper-sprayed at the scene, later said to Constable Kennedy: “Basically, like some form of entity took over me man, I’m not even kidding, I would not make this sh** up, basically it hated me.”
“It was my mate, my mate actually had the demon inside him, he was talking to me,” Flame said.
“He became the demon, he was really angry at me, this demon or whatever it was and it just wanted me dead … it was real f**king dark sh** … I was stuck with him on this weird journey, we were stuck in this same cycle.”
Sergeant Basset, who was the custody manager at Manly station, at one point told Flame somebody was dead after he repeatedly asked questions to the officers, the court was told.
Flame told a doctor at the station he had consumed eight bourbons and 10 pills during the night.
The court also heard he later sent Constable Kennedy a thank you card for helping to take care of him while at the station and the police officer agreed that was unusual.Thursday pics
Flame’s legal team wants the jury to return a verdict of not guilty by way of mental illness but prosecutors argue he had a healthy mind at the time of the incident and that his psychosis was sparked by the drug use.
The trial continues.
October 21: Liam Anderson’s attacker had ‘thousand-yard stare’: court
A man with a “thousand-yard stare” repeatedly stomped on the bloodied head of another who desperately called to a passer-by for help, a murder trial over the death of Angry Anderson’s son has been told.
The trial has been told the close mates had gone to a rave called “Awful Things” at Darlinghurst’s Burdekin Hotel and later arrived at Nadia Khalil’s Queenscliff unit to kick on into the early hours.
Ms Khalil, who took about five ecstasy pills herself on the night, grew tearful when she told the court on Wednesday Flame began acting withdrawn when she and Mr Anderson went outside her flat to try and help him.
“He closed off, he wasn’t very vocal, he wasn’t really expressing how he felt, it was almost like he was shy,” Ms Khalil said.
“(I said) that everything would be OK if he came back inside with me … he was in my hands, but no, he didn’t make it back inside the house.
“Liam was behind me at this point and he asked Mathew if he’d like to go for a chat.”
The court was told Ms Kahlil later told police: “I begged Mathew to come inside, I said ‘please come inside, please come inside’.”
The jury has been told Flame set upon and savagely bashed Mr Anderson to death in a small suburban park in Queenscliff after thinking Mr Anderson was a demon who “just wanted me dead,” when in reality his friend was trying to help him.
The court also heard evidence from Trevor Buchert, a young man who appeared via video link from the US who said he had been inspecting surf conditions at Freshwater Beach when he came across one man stomping on the head of another in the Queenscliff park at dawn.
Mr Buchert told police: “I have decided to call out ‘what are you doing?’ … I could see the victim turn his bloodied head towards me and he called out ‘help me, help me, help me’ in a desperate manner as loud as he could be,” the court heard.
Mr Buchert said he “sized up” the male attacker and decided to call police instead of trying to physically intervene because he looked too strong.
“At that point, in the heat of the moment, (I was deciding) whether or not I was going to fight him,“ Mr Buchert told the court.
“From my point of view, he was a larger set man than me and he was clearly capable of beating someone quite severely, I just figured it wasn’t a chance I wanted to take.
The court was told two police officers quickly arrived and found Mr Anderson bleeding profusely, including from both his eyes.
One officer squeezed his hand and could hear him breathing but paramedics were unable to save him and he later died.
Flame has pleaded not guilty to murder due to mental illness and the jury has been told last year while in custody he was diagnosed with a schizophrenic disorder.
However, prosecutors have argued he had a healthy mind at the time of the alleged murder and that his psychosis was triggered by the cocktail of drugs he consumed on the night.
Mr Anderson is one of four children of Rose Tattoo front man Gary Stephen “Angry” Anderson, who has been in court to watch the proceedings.
The trial continues.
October 20: Friend took 10 pills before killing Angry Anderson’s son: court
A young Sydney man had swallowed 10 ecstasy pills before he savagely bashed to death Angry Anderson’s son who he thought was a “demon” but who in reality was trying to help him, a court has been told.
Mathew Flame, now 22, of Narraweena, is on trial in the NSW Supreme Court after formally pleading not guilty to murdering Liam Anderson, 26, in a small suburban park on Sydney‘s northern beaches in November 2018.
A jury was told on the first day of the trial on Tuesday that Flame and Mr Anderson were close mates when they had a night of heavy partying at an event called “Awful Things” at the Burdekin Hotel in Darlinghurst where one of their friends vomited after taking ecstasy.
Crown prosecutor Gareth Christofi told the court the group caught an Uber back to the northern beaches when Flame began hallucinating and Mr Anderson followed him to the small park in Queenscliff and said, “I’m not going to leave you”.
But instead of realising Mr Anderson was trying to watch over him Flame set upon him and savagely beat him to death as shocked onlookers called police and Mr Anderson helplessly tried to defend himself, the court was told.
“Liam Anderson was using his arms to try and cover his face from the blows, (a) passer-by called out to the accused to stop it, the accused paused, looked at the passer-by for a moment and continued to do what he had been doing,” Mr Christofi said.
“Of course, police were called … when they arrived they saw the accused sitting on Liam Anderson.”
Mr Anderson suffered critical injuries and paramedics could not save him.
The court was told Flame later told investigators he had taken 10 ecstasy tablets and thought Mr Anderson was a demon “who just wanted me dead”.
Flame also said he did not have a history of any mental illnesses.
He was later diagnosed with a schizophrenic disorder while in prison on remand in July last year, the court was told.
But Mr Christofi told the jury Flame had a healthy mind at the time of the alleged murder.
“It’s the Crown’s position that … he did not have a disease of the mind, he had a healthy mind and that his psychosis was caused by the voluntary consumption of drugs and that the evidence doesn’t prove otherwise,” he said.
Mr Christofi said the onus was on Flame’s legal team to prove on the balance of probabilities he was “substantially impaired” during the incident if he was to be convicted of manslaughter and not murder.
Flame’s defence barrister John Stratton, SC, told the jury a true verdict would be not guilty by way of mental illness and that on the night Mr Anderson “was simply trying to help his friend”.
“When he killed Liam Anderson he was labouring under a severe psychiatric illness, schizophrenia, and as a result of suffering from the illness he had hallucinations which led him to believe that his friend was a demon who was trying to kill him and that he had no choice but to kill his good friend,” Mr Stratton said.
Rock singer Angry attended the court in person and watched on from the public gallery dressed in a dark suit and a gold-striped tie.
The trial before Justice Richard Button, which is expected to last about three weeks in the Supreme Court’s King St building in Sydney’s CBD, will return to court on Wednesday.