Retrial ordered over murder of Australian psychiatrist

The High Court of Australia has ordered a retrial of deregistered psychiatrist Jean Eric Gassy, and quashed his 2004 conviction for the murder of a former colleague, Margaret Tobin (BMJ 2004;329:759, 2 October, doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7469.759).

Dr Tobin, who was director of mental health for South Australia, was shot four times on 14 October 2002, as she left a lift, returning from lunch to her office in central Adelaide.

The High Court, by a majority of 3-2, held that a direction to a deadlocked jury by the trial judge, Justice Ann Vanstone, was not sufficiently balanced, and resulted in a “substantial miscarriage of justice,” requiring a new trial.

In October 2004, Justice Vanstone sentenced Mr Gassy to life imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 34 years. The prosecution had alleged that Mr Gassy shot Dr Tobin because of resentment and anger over her part in initiating a process during the 1990s that led to his deregistration as a medical practitioner, while both were working in Sydney.

The High Court’s Justice Michael Kirby said in his judgment upholding Mr Gassy’s appeal that the prosecution had “built a very strong case.” It included evidence supporting the conclusion that Mr Gassy was in South Australia at the time that Dr Tobin was shot, and that he owned pistols of the same brand and manufacture as the pistol proved to have been used to shoot Dr Tobin, and ammunition of the particular kind used in that shooting.

Justice Kirby also cited evidence of earlier activities by Mr Gassy, suggesting that he harboured a “sinister animus” towards Dr Tobin.

However, the prosecution’s “powerful” case and the major expense and inconvenience of a retrial had to be balanced against the important principle “of judicial impartiality and neutrality,” Justice Kirby said.

“In the end, this case stands for the principle that, particularly in circumstances of jury disagreement after a long trial, the trial judge must balance ‘ways forward’ that lead to conviction with a reminder of those that lead to the opposite outcome,” he said.