NSW: Jury told accused murderer is fit to plead

AAP General News (Australia)
02-15-1999
NSW: Jury told accused murderer is fit to plead

(EDS: NOTE LANGUAGE IN 12TH PAR)



SYDNEY, Feb 15 AAP - An intellectually disabled man accused of murdering a woman told a
psychiatrist he had put on the bloodstained clothes of the real killer, a jury was told today.

Giving evidence in the New South Wales Supreme Court, psychiatrist Dr Brian Westmore said
Graham Mailes told him the killer had shown him the woman's body and then the men swapped
clothes.

The jury has to decide whether 25-year-old Mailes is fit to be tried on a charge of
murdering 19-year-old Kim Meredith, who was stabbed to death after she left a hotel at Albury
on March 23, 1996.

Justice Peter Newman told the jurors if the accused was not capable of understanding and
participating in the trial, there was a grave risk of unfairness and he was entitled to a fair
trial.

If Mailes was found unfit, the case would go to the Mental Health Review Tribunal.

Dr Westmore, called by the crown, said Mailes was moderately disabled, independently minded
and he believed fit to be tried.

Average intelligence was rated about an IQ of 100, give or plus 10, while Mailes had an IQ
of between 50 or 60.

In a police interview played to the court, Mailes said he ran into a friend called Tony on
the night in question.

As Tony was only wearing shorts he took him to a St Vincent's clothes bin to get proper
clothing so the man could get into a hotel.

The man did not want the black tracksuit pants which Mailes got out of the bin, so Mailes
gave him his shirt and jeans and wore the pants himself.

Mailes told Dr Westmore that when he left the hotel the man called him down an alley and
said 'look at this".

"It was a dead body, I said 'you are fucking crazy' and he said 'I done it", Mailes told
the psychiatrist.

"Before I walked off I took my clothes off him ... there was blood all over it ... I should
not have put them back on," he said.

The hearing is continuing.

AAP mss/sb/was/de

KEYWORD: MAILES

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