Alan ’paid the price’

Press, 29 April 1978, Page 6

Alan ’paid the price’

PA Wellington A man who threw a desk out of a nineteenth floor window in the Williams Building, Boulcott Street, last year, lan Pattei son, aged $23, a clerk, was fined S4OO by Mr Justice Ongley in the Supreme Court at Wellington yesterday. A jury' had found Patterson guilty of wilfully destroying a desk, the property of the Accident Compensation Commission.

Patterson, who was seriously injured when he jumped from the nineteenth floor on to the roof of a car-park building on the night of July 29 last, was found not guilty, on the ground of temporary insanity, of breaking out of the building.

For Patterson, Mr R. A. McGechan said the case called for both compassion and reflection as he had already suffered greatly irrespective of any judicial penalty, and would continue *o suffer for the rest of hts life.

His physical injuries resulting from the fall included fractures of the base of the skull, jawbone, pelvis, left wrist, compound fractures of the right knee and left wrist, and a crushed heel. He was unable to run or kneel and the pain in a leg continued when he moved. He would have to have more orthopaedic surgery-.

Patterson had also suffered in reputation and personality, and financially, counsel said. He

had paid the price of his crime and the interests of the community did not denand anything more of him, but lay rather in facilitating his rehabilitation.

His Honour said he accepted that Patterson had already paid dearly for his actions. The offence was most extraordinary, and his Honour said he had not heard anything that came close to an explanation of why Patterson had done it.

He was sober at the time and there were no serious pressures on him. His Honour said he could only think he had some deep-seated resentment of the people he worked under. Patterson had been employed by the Accident Compensation Commission.