Consider Leifer ‘feigned’ mental illness to avoid justice

A court has heard Malka Leifer ‘feigned’ mental illness to run from sex abuse allegations.

Former school principal Malka Leifer at a court hearing in Jerusalem. Picture: AFP

The judge hearing the case against former school principal Malka Leifer has been urged to consider she feigned mental illness in order to delay legal action after being ­accused of abusing students.

Prosecutor Justin Lewis KC told Victoria’s County Court on Thursday that judge Mark Gamble should give less weight to the 608 days Leifer spent in home ­detention in Israel after fleeing Australia and the 52 days in custody when determining her ­sentence.

He told the court three separate panels of psychiatrists found Leifer faked mental problems to delay legal proceedings, and other experts reported psychotic breakdowns took place only in the days leading up to hearings in Israel as authorities were attempting to extradite her.

“It is a situation where the prosecution points to the fact that we have a situation where three panels of psychiatric (experts) conclude that the accused is feigning mental illness in circumstances where the mental illness essentially constitutes some sort of allergy to the legal proceedings themselves,” he said.

“The history of this matter (is) the condition was brought on, it would seem, by the legal proceedings (and) the … subsequent police investigation that showed the accused living what constit­uted a normal life.”

Leifer was found guilty of 18 charges of sexual abuse inflicted on her former students and sisters Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper.

The jury acquitted Leifer of a remaining five charges relating to a third sister, Nicole Meyer. Leifer fled Australia in the dead of night in 2008 after the Adass ­Israel School in Melbourne learned about a number of complaints that she had abused her students. The school paid for her ticket to Israel.

She was extradited to Australia from Israel in 2020 after she spent years fighting calls to face justice.

Reading from an expert report tendered during proceedings overseas, Mr Lewis said a 2011 judgment concluded she was fit to be extradited and “she had been essentially pretending to be ­mentally ill in order to avoid the extradition”.

Further, in 2018, another two expert reports concluded the same, Mr Lewis said.

In 2020 another panel of ­experts unanimously concluded Leifer was “fit to stand trial”.

Mr Lewis, again reading from an expert report, said Leifer could become “catatonic” but this psychosis was “closely related to the legal process”. He said the 15-year delay in the case was as a result of Leifer’s pretend mental illness. “The feigning of mental illness ­effects in my ­submission is this issue of delay,” he said.

Leifer’s barrister, Ian Hill KC, urged Judge Gamble to consider that 15 years had elapsed since the offending and during that period there had been no “further convictions, nor as we understand it, any relevant further charges laid”.

“From 2011 and thereabouts – a period about 12 years since these allegations were first reported to police – Leifer has had the offences hanging over her head,” he said. Another plea hearing will take place before a date is set for sentencing.