Found Unfit For Trial

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31225, 24 November 1966, Page 7

Found Unfit For Trial

After being found insane by a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday, so that he could not stand trial on a charge of attempting to obstruct the course of justice, a 28-year-old garage-hand, Sander Szucs, was ordered by Mr Justice Macarthur to be detained in strict custody at Sunnyside Hospital, at the pleasure of the Minister of Justice.

The jury had heard Dr. J. A. Begg, deputy superintendent at Sunnyside, say that Szucs was suffering from a serious depressive psychosis, and that in his own interest, and the public safety, should be in hospital. Szucs had pleaded not guilty to the charge against him —that he attempted to obstruct the course of justice by falsely reporting that he had been the driver of a vehicle involved in an accident—but his council, Mr W. A. Wilson, asked that a jury be empanelled to try whether Szucs was insane, and unable to be tried. Mr Wilson called Dr. Begg, and Dr. Brigitte Clark, also on the staff of Sunnyside Hospital, who both diagnosed Szucs as suffering from depressive psychosis—a diagnosis that Mr C. M. Roper, for the Crown, did not challenge. Dr. Begg said that Szucs was suffering from a quite serious psychosis, with some desire of suicide. He was unfit to make a rational plea on the charges he faced. The jury returned its verdict of insanity without leaving the jury-box.