Psychiatrists agree Ashley Paul Kelly was psychotic when he deliberately ran down a cyclist and a runner exercising in Yarralumla early on June 4 last year, a court heard Monday.
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And because Mr Kelly had been driving at the time of the offences police could alcohol and drug test him. The alcohol reading was nil as were the tests for ice, MDMA and cannabis.
in the ACT Supreme Court on Monday, Mr Kelly, 34, through his lawyer, pleaded not guilty by reason of mental impairment to a charge of attempted murder and culpable driving.
Unusually, prosecutors have accepted the plea, triggering quite a different process than if the charges had been contested at trial.
Early in the morning on June 4 last year, Mr Kelly deliberately drove his purple Daihatsu Pyzar at the two men in two separate incidents on Alexandrina Drive in a short amount of time.
The injuries to both victims were serious; to the runner they were catastrophic.
Doctors had to perform life-saving surgery on the man's brain which was bleeding on both sides. The court heard he is unlikely to ever regain full cognitive function.
After Mr Kelly's pleas and the Crown's acceptance of them, Chief Justice Helen Murrell will determine whether the plea is the right one.
If she does, she will set a term of imprisonment that effectively caps how long Mr Kelly can remain in custody.
That is to avoid a potentially unfair result that a mentally ill person is kept in custody longer than they would have been were they not unwell.
After the court's ruling the Ainslie man will be detained in custody and transferred to the jurisdiction of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal for review under mental health laws.
The court heard two psychiatrists agreed Mr Kelly was psychotic at the time and did not know his conduct was wrong and was not able to control it.
During a police interview, Mr Kelly could not remember the events.
Prosecutor Shane Drumgold told the court he appeared to respond to external stimuli and take guidance from someone not present in the room.
At one point he appears to recall that morning's events, and bursts into tears.
There are references to two Ashley Kellys, on which Mr Drumgold said there was a consensus that that referred to two people in the one body.
The psychiatrists reported that for the cyclist, Mr Kelly was acting on psychotic impulses that he thought some harm was going to come to the man and so ran him off the road.
For the runner, Mr Kelly was acting on impulses that led him to believe the man, who he called the devil, was going to do harm.
Determining a term of detention of Mr Kelly was an "extraordinarily difficult exercise", Mr Drumgold said.
It required in part a balancing of the seriousness of the crimes with Mr Kelly's mental health.
Defence lawyer Jane Campbell, for Mr Kelly, told the court he understood his responsibility for injuries to the two men and had to live with that guilt for the rest of his life.
He had been in psychosis for two or three days leading up the two incidents on Alexandrina Drive, believing the world was coming to an end, Ms Campbell said.
He had been on anti-psychotic medications in the past but at the time wasn't taking any, she said.
He believed the runner was the devil and was dying or might already be dead.
Mr Kelly had been diagnosed with multiple mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, the court heard.
He had been abused as a child and had an early introduction to drugs.
Chief Justice Murrell said she would hand down a decision on Tuesday.
