Court substitutes jail sentence for order

Press, 4 March 1987, Page 6

Court substitutes jail sentence for order

PA Wellington The Court of Appeal has moved to prevent a mentally disordered rapist being released as soon as his mental condition improves.

In a judgment, the Court substituted a year prison sentence for the order originally made which detained the man at a psychiatric hospital. Trevor Howard Batt, of Dunedin, had pleaded guilty to sexually violating a woman.

Instead of sentencing Batt, the judge had made an order that he be detained as a committed patient.

The Solicitor-General appealed the making of the order.

Delivering the Court of

Appeal’s judgment, Mr Justice McMullin said the order should not have been made. The proper sentence was imprisonment.

The order would have entitled Batt to be released when his detention as a mentally disordered person was no longer for his own good or in the public interest.

His Honour said it was a real possibility that Batt would have been discharged after a relatively short time, and probably long before the expiry of any sentence that might otherwise have been imposed.

When Batt is sentenced to imprisonment, and another section of the Criminal Justice Act invoked, he will be detained

in one institution or another for the period of a sentence which reflected the gravity of his offending. At the same time he will receive treatment for his mental disorder.

The Court, comprising Mr Justice McMullin, Mr Justice Somers, and Mr Justice Casey, allowed the Solicitor-General’s appeal.

The Court directed that psychiatric reports and certificates about Batt should be referred to the Secretary for Justice so the Superintendent of the prison where Batt will be held can apply for Batt to be held at a psychiatric hospital. Last November a psychiatrist certified that Batt suffered depression, alcoholism and a personality disorder.