Shortcut: A victim’s perspective of the mental impairment defence *re-issue*

In episode 216 of Australian True Crime, we heard from Dr. Danny Sullivan, who's the

executive director of Clinical Services at Thomas Embling Hospital in Melbourne. Thomas

Embling is a secure psychiatric facility. It's nestled in a leafy bend of the Yarra River.

On the same spot where the Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum was established in 1848, when the

area was still part of the colony of New South Wales. There are only two ways to be

admitted to Thomas Embling, either under the Mental Health Act, or under the

Crime's Mental Empamant and Unfitness to be Tried Act. Under the Mental Health Act,

a person with a severe mental illness who poses a threat to themselves or to

others can be admitted for psychiatric treatment compulsorily. At Thomas Embling,

you'll find only the most challenging of people in that category, including

those already in prison who develop severe mental illness or whose existing conditions

escalate in that environment. But as the people admitted under the Crime's Mental

Empamant and Unfitness to be Tried Act, also known as the Forensic Patients, for whom

Thomas Embling receives most attention. These are the people who've been sent to the hospital

by the court because it's decided they were either mentally impaired at the time they

committed an offence, or that they have a mental impairment that means they can't stand

trial for an offence. The offences in question are generally violent.

Offenders aren't sentenced to set periods of incarceration under the Mental Health Act.

They receive treatment under custodial supervision orders. Ideally, with the benefit of treatment

and medication, their conditions improve and they can apply for leave from the hospital.

Some patients have jobs outside and return every night. And if and when staff are satisfied

of a patient's recovery, they can be released back into the community. There have obviously

been many, many patients who've re-entered the community successfully and we've never

heard about them again. Unfortunately though, there have been some notable exceptions.

In 2006, the then Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott visited Thomas Embling and was

punched in the face by a patient as he toured the acute care unit. The Sydney Morning

Harold reported that the minister laughed off the attack, chuckling to journalists, that

some people probably thought his attacker had had a sane moment when he swung a punch

at him.

His attacker that day was a man by the name of Sean Christian Price, who was sent to Thomas

Embling after a string of violent rapes. Nine years after punching Tony Abbott, Price

murdered teenager Marsha Vukertich in a completely random attack. Ross Conradaris was

suffering a psychotic break when he shot his grandparents in 2012 and then set their house

on fire. The court found that his psychosis was induced by drug use, but that he had an

underlying diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. And he was placed at the Thomas Embling Hospital

as a forensic patient. In 2019, while on day release, Conradaris armed himself with

a meat cleaver and scissors before attempting several home invasions. He later pleaded guilty

to aggravated burglary, attempted armed robbery and assault.

With all of that said, Dr Sullivan definitely presents a compelling case in favour of

the Thomas Embling Hospital and for the system it represents. But today, we hear from

David Kamerata. David's former best friend, the best man at his wedding, is a man by the

name of Jonathan D. Jonathan is now a forensic patient at the Thomas Embling Hospital and

David presents what I think is a pretty compelling case too.

This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which

this podcast is created. The war-undry, war-wrong people of the Kulin Nation. And a warning,

this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.

I don't know, we just sort of grew up in kind of in the country and we didn't have a lot

to do. So, you know, there was, it was decent guy. I mean, there's always quite jovial

and, but he had a serious side to him and I mean, he was quite intelligent as well, like

very intelligent. And he was a heavy cannabis user. So, I think that might have played

a part somewhere along the lines. I kind of went in a slightly different direction in

the sense that I didn't get into any sort of party drugs or anything like that. You

know, there was just sort of a little bit of a separation there along the ways. And

then I sort of went with, you know, my wife and sort of started a life and he continued

sort of on that. But he was a decent guy. I mean, got into the footy and I like to read

comic books and stuff like that. So, never, we never really had any issues to play basketball.

It's just general. It's a urban, fairly normal. Yeah. He was actually working at my house

and I was picking him up and dropping him off because he'd never license. And I was noticing

just saying, just odd thing here and there that just didn't, wasn't like him exactly.

So now just a bit darker in tone and he wasn't as jovial and I said, listen, just don't

do the job anymore. Like, forget it. I'll pay you for the whole job. And then I'll get

someone because I thought that was making him upset. How old was he at this stage? Yeah,

about 30s, roughly. But yeah. So, and then the last thing that caused the fight was actually

how it was publicised a bit different. I got into a little bit of an argument over

a pizza, just the size of the pizza is really specific about it, which is silly. But then

I asked him to wait before I had to drive him home, which is quite a distance. I had a truck

coming with some furniture and I said, can we wait another half an hour? And then that's

where he started to carry on and I had enoughs enough and raised my voice. He raised his

with a bit of swearing going on. So I paid him for the job and I said, don't, please don't

come back. I begged him the night before not to come back to do the job. The contacted

ceased, right? So then it first started off with a few friends of mine, ringing me saying,

oh, he's said XYZ to them and asking them whether or not, you know, just different things

that had never happened. And I knew that there was something going on. Apparently he'd

had some vision of myself and his brother bashing him until his brain fell out and then

all these angels came put something along those lines. He was pretty full on. But obviously

that didn't happen. I mean, and we didn't go to school together either. His brother went

to school and crossed town. So do you remember when you heard that David had been murdered?

They mentioned his name on the radio. So I ran to the computer and I saw that vision

in the shopping center, Don Kaster shopping center, waiting with a samurai sword and a

knife for his brother, David, by the lifts. And within a couple of, we're literally within

a split second. I was like, well, that's, they've got it wrong. That's his brother who's

died. I thought it was Jono that had died because it's so clear. It was so clear. You

know the guy. It's very clear that there's him standing there. There's Trackey Dax.

Not even like a question mark. It's just bang that's him. So I was like, started to get

a bit stressed out thinking, oh my God, someone's killed him. I don't know what he's, you

know, up to these days, but, you know, sad, sad regardless. And then I sort of got down

a bit further and I was like, put two and two together going, okay, shit is killing people

now. So he was missing. He was on the run. Police were looking for him. Correct.

All over the media. Yeah. And I mean, everything started to get just odd after that, like thinking

whether or not you could be next or, so you start living a different sort of life.

I read the story a hundred times, but seeing that there's vision of it, we can clearly

see you walking down your front steps, but there's another man waiting in your front yard.

You can't see him as you're walking out your front door. It just made my stomach turn.

It made me want to cry, actually, to be honest. I said the weirdest reaction to, it's

the way you skip down the first few stairs. You're so carefree. You know, you're a bloke

in the morning, skipping down those top, yeah, top few stairs of your beautiful house.

But I can see someone's laying in my toy, someone standing right there to ambush you.

It's horrible.

Yeah, so he creeped out underneath and from the stairs and then bang.

I actually thought something had fallen off the roof and hit me in the head.

I bet. And then he just keeps coming for you down the driveway.

Yeah. You managed to fight him off that time and then what? He just ran?

Yeah, he ran and I, there was a car and I thought, awesome, like, you know, because at the

time I, I mean, it hit me pretty hard, right? And I was bleeding a lot, but I was also

bit dazed as well. So I thought, I'll grab the car and then we can just, you know, follow

him from behind, figure out where he goes and then, you know, you can get it sorted out

that way. But he, the car swerved around me, you know, must have thought, you know,

it was a crazy guy in the middle of the street, right?

Yeah.

So he went and I was bleeding everywhere and I was probably a bit amped up as well.

And then I ran over and grabbed the hammer that he dropped and I thought, I'll chase him

down. But at the time, my neighbors had come out and I actually stopped running, I think

and there's a lot of screaming. It was a pretty great chaotic scene of kids in there.

Yeah. So after that, I actually went in the house and my kids were crying and, and

which was horrible. And I distinctly remember my middle child is saying, you know, you're

okay. And I had a cloth on the back of my head, but I took it. I thought it was a little scratch

rugs. I wasn't thinking straight. So I took that off. And I mean, you could see right into

my neck. And it was like, you know, the huge piece of skin that was flaped open, you could

say, it was brutal. He, well, he sort of obviously he disappeared, right? So then we, we

end up the worst part about this was the year that we, we went into after that was a year

of, of I pretty much knew full well that he was, if he waited that long, he's going to come

back again, right? So we knew we couldn't stay in our house. So we, we packed up all three

kids, some of our belongings, not even all of them. And then we went to live with somebody.

So we live with somebody for a week. Then we were living with a friend of ours and then

we couldn't stay there forever. And it was really kind of them to give, give us, you know,

their space. Then we moved in with my sister in law. They've got two kids. So you could imagine

there's already five kids in a house plus they've got a life to live as well. So we lived

there for three months and then we moved again. So that's, you know, move number three with three

kids, which is hard enough as it is at the same time jumping at shadows. Yeah, as well as

trying to get, you know, and I was hell bent on not getting caught out again. And that causes

problems down the track as well. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, I mean, your adrenaline must have been

at redlining. It was crazy for a day, all day every day. And I'm not even embarrassed to say,

I've, I've jumped at my own shadow. I've been swooped by birds and just about had a heart attack.

You name it, I've done it, but on the same token, all that stuff kept me alive, right? So,

I can't complain. He'd been stalking me, I think, for nine days or something previous to us

capturing. But you had no idea. I had no idea. You literally had not seen or heard from him in a

year. No, yeah, exactly. Since that day and you drive away, nobody had. That's right. He was the most

wanted guy in Australia, I think, at the time, like, they're, you know, literally posters, it was

everywhere. Yeah, that's right. Trying everything to find this guy could not find him. That's right.

I'd been that he'd been stalking me and I hadn't seen him. I hadn't actually caught a glimpse of

him, but I was aware of what was going on around me. So he'd been pretty good like that, but

in his not being seen. But the very Monday, I pulled into work and I caught a glimpse of him.

But when I say I caught a glimpse of him, it was so slight and from such a distance away

that I look back on it now and like, I was so ready for what was going on.

So I'd driven in and luckily, I think God, I got a car park right on the ground level and he

was on Flinders Street just near Hozier Lane, just peaking out like someone sort of peaking around

a corner. And I saw a hat pulled down and it looked like a disguise, right? And he was looking at

you. Yeah, he was watching me. I chased him up Hozier Lane. I actually had my colleague with me

Dion who is much bigger, much stronger than what I am. Thank God. And he was with me and I took off,

like I didn't wait for him. And I was well in front of him. But when I saw him, I sort of was a bit

like I wasn't sure. I didn't want to just go and grab some guy and start punching and kicking him

because getting big trouble for doing that. So I deed him a little bit and then he took off and

I slipped over and then he ended up running. We actually caught up with him exactly in the same

spot where he was spying on me. And then as soon as we caught up with him, he sort of subdued him.

In September, 2020, after hearing evidence from two forensic psychiatrists that Jonathan Dick had

been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Justice Lex Lazri accepted that he was suffering the

effects of a severe mental illness when he killed his brother and attacked David Kamerata.

He found Jonathan not guilty of murder, attempted murder and stalking by way of mental impairment

and ruled that he be admitted as a forensic patient to the Thomas Embling Hospital.

Unfortunately, as is often the case, there were no available beds. So Jonathan actually spent years

in a psychiatric ward in prison. It strikes me that families who have the parole issue

to deal with after a certain number of years, they know when that's going to come back up.

That comes up every three years, say. And so it's horrible, but every three years, they have to get

back out there in the media and they have to retell the story and relive it, but they know when

it's coming. You don't know that. Don't know anything. We're not allowed to know anything. Even

even I was told by the homicide detective that even when he's allowed out on day release,

the police get notified, but not of what he's done. All those things, they just get told that if

this person, they get sent some kind of message to say that this type of person is out, but not

with specifics. So I don't even give me a phone call to say, hey, we're just going to test him out

down at Northland Shopping Centre or High Point Shopping Centre. Maybe steer clear of that place.

Yeah. Again, I'm sure that they help people, not a problem and I don't mean to completely demonise

the place in that sense because I understand people do have mental health issues and they need to be

helped. However, I've got somebody and the loss of life for me personally outside of David

who passed away as well, which did affect me. My concern is with my own life, obviously. So

them getting it wrong means that I potentially get stalked again and if you've lived a good few

years under the type of pressure and stress of having someone stalking you, it creates a lot of

issues in every part of your life. These days have to take four different types of medication

and these aren't all conscious. The problem with me is it's, I've got all those triggers from

day-to-day life and that's from opening doors to, I scold myself if I walk out of a door and I

don't look each way. I can't handle if someone's a few metres behind me, I've got an IDM and then I've

got a move. Things like that won't go away and I look at it and I think if you allow him back out

on the streets again, I get it that he may be better but if you've gotten it wrong, which you

clearly have in the past, it could cost me my life or somebody else and I think that that's a big

risk to take to the community. Thank you to our guest David Kamerata. We should note that the

Victorian State Government has recently undertaken an upgrade of the Thomas Embling Hospital,

which has seen an extra 80 beds added to the facility. There are now around 200 beds in total.

If you need support after listening to this podcast, you can call Lifeline on 1311-14

or contact 1-800-RESPECT on 1-800-737-732 or 1-800-RESPECT.org.au. Indigenous Australians can

contact 13-RESPECT on 13-92-76 or 13-RESPECT.org.au.

The producers of this podcast recognise the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded.

They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders past, present and those emerging.