Decapitation idea ‘came early in the attack’ on Rita Camilleri, court told

The partial defence of substantial impairment means if the jury finds it more likely than not that Ms Camilleri’s mental disorders constitute a substantial impairment, it is open to them to find her not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

The question of whether she was impaired enough to downgrade the charge “is a value judgment to be made by you,” Mr Steel told the jury.

Mr Steel said the killing was “a triggered, explosive attack which was very clearly from a complete and utter loss of control”.

He said the jury had heard that in the day before and hours leading up to the attack, Ms Camilleri had suffered a “build-up” of stressful incidents – including a trip to the police station over harassing phone calls, a health emergency involving a neighbour, an incident at a doctor’s surgery where she felt “humiliated”, a visit from a home doctor who left without assessing her – all culminating in her mother calling triple zero with the intention of sending Ms Camilleri to a mental hospital.

He said that call was the “tipping point” that sent Ms Camilleri over the edge.

Crown prosecutor Tony McCarthy argued the testimony of Ms Camiller’s sister Kristy Torrisi, family friend Jade Arena and neighbour Ruth Heard suggested “there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary in the accused’s behaviour that day” that would suggest a build-up to such a violent loss of control.

He said the jury could infer from Rita Camilleri’s horrific injuries that her daughter had decided early in the piece that she was going to decapitate her, and the 57-year-old put up an extended fight.

He said while there were “innumerable” stab wounds to Mrs Camilleri’s neck and head, there were only two superficial wounds to her lower torso.

“The only inference available to you from the evidence from the stab and incised wounds being so concentrated [is that] the accused’s focus from the beginning of the stabbing attack must have been her mother’s neck and head,” he said.

“You might conclude … that the idea of decapitating her mother came early to Ms Camilleri in the attack.”

Mr McCarthy said the extensive defensive stab wounds on both of Mrs Camilleri’s hands suggest she “was actively defending herself for some time” while her daughter was stabbing her in the head and neck.

He said in decapitating her mother and removing her eyes and tongue, the jury might think Ms Camilleri was displaying a loss of control. But in the Crown’s submission, he said the acts, and her explanation for doing them, showed Ms Camilleri was “engaged in carrying out her violent fantasies she had experienced through the movies.”

It was “evidence the accused was at least at that point operating out of a morbid curiosity with death, dismemberment and decapitation.”

He said the Crown does not dispute that Ms Camilleri’s capacity to control herself was substantially impaired by an abnormality of mind arising from an underlying condition, but the question for the jury is “to what degree did the accused lose her ability to control herself” and “if it was extreme, when did she regain the ability to control herself?”

“If her anger had dissipated, I would ask, why did she continue with the attack?”

It would be open to the jury to find even early on in the attack, “the accused regained composure and some degree of self control but nevertheless continued to attack her mother.”

Final closing submissions will continue on Tuesday.