Day of the incident
The court heard Dr Hill’s statement said: “Post-partum psychosis is recognised to fluctuate in intensity, it is therefore I decided to prescribe immediate medication for this.”
DS said all psychotic illnesses can fluctuate “sometimes in response to social cues, but sometimes the person’s intention is focused for example on activites, like if she was getting the child, feeding the child or changing the nappy, her preocupation with the voices would be slightly lesser because the intention is focused on one particular act so there is variation in the day and between the days.”
KM: “Bearing in mind all has been said about the potential diagnosis and observations, is there any significance in the fact that there is a basis that planning was involved at least on the day of it, the defendant telling her husband to leave the property, but certainly evidence preventing him entering the property and delaying him getting assistance for the children – do any of those matters have significance in terms of the diagnosis?”
DS: “In terms of diagnosis – no. As with any psychotic symptoms there is a spectrum from mild, moderate to severity, any symptom could present as. If a person is suffering with cross-psychosis is convinced he or she is living in an alternative world their thoughts are so disjointed they can;t make sense of it, it is that level of psychosis that they will lose their ability to plan or pre-plan and that would be when insanity would be considered. That is a very high threshold that a person is unwell or psychotic they’re not able to form thoughts that are linked to each other.
“What we are seeing is not that. She was psychotic but also able ot care for her children up to the day of the incident, was aware of who she was, who she was, her husband, but her behaviour was influenced or contaminated by her symptoms.
“On the one hand she was aware of who she was, what she was and what she was doing but was getting more preoccupied with the voices saying her husband was up to something. She was getting increasingly concerned and worried that if he would take her children to Pakistan like she was believing that they would come to harm.”
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