Bourke St rampage driver guilty of murders

IT took James Gargasoulas seconds to mow down pedestrians in central Melbourne.

A Supreme Court jury yesterday spent less than an hour to unanimously find the 28year-old guilty of murdering six people and endangering the lives of 27 others.

Gargasoulas, 28, sat expressionless as the jury foreman announced “guilty” to all 33 charges, with the killer often appearing to bounce or wriggle.

Gargasoulas, who has treatment-resistant paranoid schizophrenia, had previously admitted driving through the busy Bourke St pedestrian mall and along footpaths in January 2017, causing death and injury.

However, he pleaded not guilty to the charges, keen to have his day in court to deliver an explanation.

On Monday, he told the court he believed he had permission from God during a premonition to hit people with the stolen car he was driving, but not to kill anyone.

“I apologise from my heart but that’s not going to fix anything ... neither will a lengthy sentence fix what I done,” he said.

A lawyer for five of the mur- der victims’ families told reporters they were grateful for the verdict.

“The speed of today’s verdict reflects the fact this wasn’t a tragic accident,” Genna Angelowitsch said.

“This was an intentional, callous act by Mr Gargasoulas that has stolen six innocent victims from the people that love them.”

Ms Angelowitsch, who represents the families of threemonth-old Zachary Bryant, Jess Mudie, 23, Matthew Si, 33, Bhavita Patel, 33, and Yosuke Kanno, 25, said they appreciated the continued respect of their privacy as they prepared for the sentencing process.

The other murder victim was 10-year-old Tahlia Hakin.

During the trial, Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd QC told jurors it was “the clearest case of criminal liability that you will ever come across”.

Gargasoulas did not challenge the prosecution case.

Before the jury retired, Justice Mark Weinberg told jurors they had to accept Gargasoulas’s admissions as established facts.

Justice Weinberg explained although Gargasoulas was suf- fering mental health issues, he had not used mental impairment as a defence. He said because Gargasoulas’s psychosis and delusions at the time of the rampage were drug-induced, he could not argue he was not guilty by way of mental impairment.

Gargasoulas told the court on Monday he had not intended for anyone to die, but understood that “in a sense, yes” he knew when he was doing it that was the probable outcome.

Throughout the legal proceedings, he has maintained delusions including he would be made king during the trial, that he must convince the world that “God’s law” must be reinstated and that a comet will hit Earth.

He was previously “very keen” to be found mentally fit to stand trial. During his murder trial, jurors flinched and gasped as confronting and graphic footage of pedestrians being struck was played close to three dozen times.

Gargasoulas will return to court on January 29 next year for a 2½-day plea hearing ahead of sentencing.