Durban - A psychiatrist who is testifying in the murder trial of a Durban accountant has admitted that he formed his opinion of the case based on information he got from the State prosecutor.
John Dunn was testifying in the trial of Nick Longano in the Durban High Court on Tuesday.
Longano is charged with the August 2010 murder of his ex-girlfriend Vinoba Naidoo, who died of suffocation.
He claims in his plea statement that he has no recollection of how Naidoo, his girlfriend of eight years, died on that day. He also said he was incapable of controlling his actions nor able to appreciate his actions were wrong.
The State alleges Naidoo was killed when Longano stood on her neck. The force of the assault was such that the imprint of his shoe was transferred to her neck.
According to Longano, on the day of the murder, the couple, who had broken up, were sharing out their possessions when an argument over curtains escalated and Naidoo allegedly attacked him with a candlestick.
He has put up a rare defence referred to as “sane automatism”, in which a person involuntarily commits acts while in an altered state of mind.
In his report, Dunn said that Longano had purposefully harmed Naidoo in a “goal-directed fashion”.
“These features suggest that Longano had full awareness of what he was doing, and that his behaviour was voluntary and intentional.”
On Monday, during his cross-examination, Dunn admitted his finding had initially been made based on a summary provided by the State, and not on the evidence before the court.
Dunn only read the full transcript of court proceedings after he was ordered to do so by Judge Kate Pillay in September last year, and filed a new report.
However, Dunn said that his finding remained the same. But he also admitted that he did not know whether he had been given an accurate summary of the evidence by the State.
“I thought at the time that the information was sufficient, and I worked on the request from the prosecutor. I was satisfied with my opinion, and it has not changed.”
Prosecutor Nadira Moosa asked Dunn if there would be an imprint if Longano only stood on Naidoo’s neck for five seconds, which is the defence’s version of events.
Dunn replied that the time period was not adequate for the high level of bruising that occurred.
Earlier in the trial psychologists Lynette Roux and Lourens Schlebusch, who testified for the defence, said Longano’s mental state on the day of the murder was consistent with that of a person in a state of sane automatism.
The case was adjourned to next month.
The Mercury