A verdict has been delivered in the trial of Zach Mavin’s over the fatal stabbing of a man at Shortland two and a half year’s ago.
Mr Mavin stood accused of murder and attempted armed robbery after he tried to hold up a service station on Sandgate Road before stabbing well-known local Robert “Bobby” Palmer to death around 8pm on December 12, 2020.
ACM reports Justice Stephen Campbell found the act proven, but that Mavin was not criminally responsible as he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia on the night of the murder and did not know that his actions were morally wrong.
The decision means Mavin will be detained as a forensic patient until the Mental Health Review Tribunal is convinced his release would not endanger himself or anyone else.