MACMILLAN TRIAL ‘Prison May Have Caused Illness’

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30900, 5 November 1965, Page 3

MACMILLAN TRIAL ‘Prison May Have Caused Illness’

(New Zealand Press Association!

AUCKLAND, November 4.

In the Supreme Court, Auckland, tomorrow morning Mr Justice Hardie Boys will complete his summing up to a jury in the trial of Daniel Huntwell Macmillan, aged 28, unemployed, on charges relating to the Auckland Prison riot.

Imprisonment may have caused a deterioration in Macmillan’s mental condition since the riots. His actions were now more bizarre, said Dr. Patrick Phillip Eric Savage, a psychiatrist, Superintendent of Oakley Hospital. He explained that Macmillan could be suffering from prison psychosis, a mental illness caused by the trying conditions in gaol.

A prisoner realised the game was up. He was in a jam and he could only get out if he was actually ill. The stress in a vulnerable individual actually released an illness, he said.

Macmillan is charged with attempting by force to break out of a penal institution, discharging a firearm at a prison officer, and assaulting two other prison officers. There are two alternative charges. Macmillan, who has pleaded not guilty on all counts, is represented by Mr P. A. Williams and Mr K. Ryan. Mr D. S Morris appears for the Crown. Savage, a Crown witness called to refute earlier defence evidence of insanity, said he examined Macmillan twice in October and twice this week. “I was unable to satisfy myself that he was mentally ill at the time of the prison riots to the extent that he did not know what he was doing was wrong, according to the usual standards,” he said. Use Of Disguise Savage said he based this conclusion on the precautions Macmillan took to disguise himself with a balaclava. His behaviour could be consistent with paranoid schizophrenia but he could very well be malingering. “It would be difficult procedure but we are dealing with a man of above average intelligence who has had the opportunity to observe mental illness in his own family,” said Savage. In his address to the jury,

Mr Williams raised the question of identity. “I put to you that you must be very careful when you are dealing with the question of whether these alleged crimes were committed by Macmillan,” he said. He suggested to the jury that the escape plan, if the prisoners were trying to get out, was not particularly logical.

Mr Williams submitted that the jury had heard from an array of psychiatrists seldom equalled in any trial in the country. There was no doubt, on the balance of probabilities, that the defence had made out a case of insanity, said counsel. There was no doubt that Macmillan had a disease of the mind. In June. 1964, Dr. Tetro had made a diagnosis that Macmillan was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He submitted that Dr.

Gluckman must have impressed the jury with his thoroughness. He had spent seven hours with Macmillan. Dr. Gluckman had made contact with Macmillan, said Williams. The doctor had got a picture of "a twisted and sick mind.” Two-Year Illness In Dr. Hall the jury had an independent witness who had been called by a judge to make a report on Macmillan, pr. Hall had said he would certify Macmillan and that the illness was at least two years old. Dr. Bennett, who had checked up on Macmillan’s past, had said he would not hesitate to certify him. Mr Morris, in his final address, submitted that there was ample evidence to show that Macmillan was the second man in this matter. It was for the accused to prove that on the date on which the crime was alleged he was not sane. The jury was not concerned with Macmillan’s mental state today or two years ago. The time the jury was concerned with was July 19 and 20 this year when the attempt to escape took place. It was not a question of whether Macmillan was eccentric on that date, or whether he was odd: it was not a question of whether he was mentally abnormal on that date. Somehow a gun had got in the prison. “It didn’t come in the mail addressed to Mr Macmillan,” said Mr Morris. Mr Morris reviewed the escape attempt and asked the jury if it was not an example of a well thought-out and carefully planned bid. His Honour said anything that might have happened in another trial had nothing to do with this one. He told the jury it was much safer that it acquit Macmillan on the count that with reckless disregard for the safety of others he discharged a firearm at Richard HenryAlexander Grubb.