21 August 2004
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3009939a10,00.html
The family of a Templeton woman who was stabbed in the brain with a kitchen knife is outraged her attacker has been allowed to walk free.
Stable hand Gareth William Davis, 19, admitted he launched a naked attack on his best friend’s mother, Sandra Didham, in her home late at night on June 22 last year.
But Davis successfully claimed that the rave drug he had accepted from a stranger in a hotel toilet several hours before left him in a state where he was not responsible for his actions. His lawyer was able to argue he was in a state of automatism.
Christchurch District Court Judge Murray Abbott told the jurors the law was that even if Davis willingly took the drug – contended to be the hallucinogenic anaesthetic ketamine – they must acquit him if they found it a reasonable possibility that he did not know what he was doing.
Didham is still recovering from her brain injury and was not in court to hear the not-guilty verdicts. However, relatives and supporters reacted with outrage at the defence that allowed Davis to walk free.
A spokeswoman for the family, who declined to identify herself, called for the law to be changed to prevent other violent attackers getting off without any penalty because they had willingly taken drugs.
“He didn’t have to take the drug, even if he was offered it,” she said.
“Nobody forced him.”
Davis did not react to the verdict initially but soon after broke down in sobs. His family wept openly after he was acquitted but declined to comment.
Through their lawyer, Jonathan Eaton, they said later that their thoughts and sympathies remained with Sandra Didham and her family, with whom they had been on friendly terms.
Prosecutor Phil Shamy had told the court that Davis had frequently stayed the night at the Didhams’ Templeton home before the attack.
About 1.30am, Davis arrived unannounced at Sandra Didham’s door and claimed he was locked out of his parents’ home 150m away. She offered him a place to sleep.
Two hours later, she was having trouble sleeping and had gone to the kitchen to make a drink when she noticed a sudden movement in the lounge, Shamy said.
“A moment later she was attacked by Davis, who was naked at the time and had a weapon, most likely a knife from her kitchen,” he added.
“During the course of the struggle, she suffered a serious stab wound to her right temple, which pierced the skull and entered the brain.”
Didham’s screams woke her son, who came to her aid. Davis ran to the room he had been offered, dressed, then ran out the back door, yelling: “Oh, no. Oh, no.”
When Davis was located about 7am, he told police he had been drinking the previous night at the Islington Hotel, Shamy added.
“At the hotel, he went into the toilet and took a pill from someone he didn’t know and hadn’t met before. He felt unwell and vomited two or three minutes later and then he remembers nothing else until he returned home the next morning.”
Eaton told the jury Davis was devastated when he was told what he had done and was deeply sorry for the injuries he accepted that he had inflicted.
“However the defence is focused not on what happened but on how it came to happen,” Eaton said.
Davis did not give evidence but the jury heard from pharmacologists and psychiatrists about possible effects of the pill.
Christchurch psychiatrist Phil Brinded said he thought it was likely Davis had been in a state of automatism at the time of the attack, while another psychiatrist said it was reasonably possible.
Judge Abbott called on the jury to approach dispassionately the crucial issue of whether Davis was in a state of automatism at the time of the knife attack.
The jury deliberated for about four hours before finding Davis not guilty on alternative charges of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and recklessly causing the injuries.
