A Prospect man will be detained in a mental health facility indefinitely after being found not guilty of the murder of Dale Watson by reason of insanity.
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Justice Robert Pearce made the restriction order under the Criminal Justice Mental Impairment Act requiring that Joshua Josef Barker, 32, be admitted to and detained in a secure mental health unit until the order was discharged by the Supreme Court.
He said that the risk to the public if Mr Barker was released into the community was unacceptable.
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Mr Barker was made subject to an interim restriction order on November 29, 2019
Mr Watson was killed when a vehicle driven by Mr Barker struck him on March 9, 2018 .
"The force of the impact threw Mr Watson up and forward and he died almost immediately," he said.
"He landed on the roadway with such force as to cause extensive fractures to his skull and severe brain damage."
Mr Barker drove to the home of some people he knew and told them he had "killed the snake".
Justice Pearce said that the verdict of the jury was that Mr Barker was aware of the presence of a person on the footpath and deliberately drove at the person.
"I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that although Mr Barker's mind was so disordered that he lacked the capacity to know that this was something he should not do, his object was to drive into the thing he saw on the roadway and to kill or injure it," he said.
"The evidence of the police collision investigator Constable Rybka and other evidence satisfied me that the act of driving was deliberate.
"Mr Barker revved his engine deliberately drove off the road without braking or deviation to the place where the pedestrian would have been in clear view."
Justice Pearce said that Mr Barker had been brutally assaulted in 2009 and may have believed that he was driving into one of the attackers.
"I am satisfied that this was the reason he drove at Mr Watson that is in the delusional belief that Mr Watson was one of those men."
He said Mr Watson's family had given genuine and moving accounts about the effect of the events.