The State v Enakuan Salaiau

• Jurisdiction: Papua New Guinea
• Citation: [1994] PNGLR 388
• Date: 21 January 1994
• Court: National Court
• Year: 1994

National Court: Doherty J

Judgment Delivered: 21 January 1994

1 Criminal law—murder of mother—defences—insanity—automatism—accused's belief that devil controlling him—proper foundation of fact required—genuine and fraudulent cases—medical or scientific evidence required

2 Evidence—expert witnesses—sanity issue—testimony by medical practitioners—not qualified psychiatrists—more qualified than court or counsel

___________________________

Doherty J: The accused is indicted on one count of the murder of Nahayam Manoa who was his mother. It is not in dispute that the accused struck his mother with a log. He himself says the log was used when they were at the fire frying sago. The blow from the log was to the head and caused the death.

The accused's sister was a witness to the events leading up to the assault and Counsel for the Defence has asked the court to particularly note matters in her evidence. She has said that she, her mother and her two small children were together in a house when the accused came in. They were frying sago together. The accused sat and then complained about his teeth which were causing him pain and he called out. She shared the food with her mother and the accused then the accused again called and yelled and complained about the pain in his teeth. This caused her to be frightened because of his past behaviour and she picked her child up and ran. At the same time the deceased was trying to pick up the other child to go but the accused hit her before she made good her escape.

This was not the first occasion that the accused has struck the witness nor is it the first occasion that he has struck the deceased. She re–counts previous occasion when he complained about being hungry when he hit the deceased and when he complained about not having "a smoke" when he also hit the deceased.

The accused's own explanation to the police was that they had been eating sago:

"I also felt great pain in my teeth on my left side of my jaw which is swollen. The pain started in the jaw and I became frustrated and got angry. I used the wood for sitting on to fry sago and make fire and then I called in language that I'm going to kill one of you. They jumped down from the door and ran away. I got this wood and threw it on top of my mother's head, she fell down and I picked up the wood and threw it again on top of her head and I kicked her bottom"

He was asked why he hit his mother...