TOSTEE WALKS FREE

DISTURBING DIAGNOSIS:

GABLE Tostee, the man who was cleared yesterday of the murder and manslaughter of the woman who fell to her death from his apartment, had previously been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and an inability to connect with people.

In 2006, when he was being sentenced over a fake ID racket, a psychiatrist and a doctor each provided to the court an assessment of his mental competence. No conviction was recorded. Dr Ian Curtis, in his psychiatric report, described Tostee as a “partially disabled person” who in all probability suffers from Asperger syndrome.

“Tostee presented as a socially distant, emotionally estranged person with whom it was impossible to establish a clear-cut rapport,” the court was told.

To make his mental state even more complicated, Tostee, Dr Curtis said, also suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder.

His OCD included “magical rituals” – a term often associated with people who believed that thinking something bad could cause it to happen.

The rituals were usually time consuming and debilitating.

Dr Curtis concluded Tostee was a “disabled person” who was not psychotic, but was unable to connect with people emotionally and would need ongoing help.

“He is at a huge disadvantage in the normal social world. It includes his present and future life as an adult where he is going to require people of goodwill to surround him and advise him and to employ him if he is going to have any chance at all of leading a productive life,” he said.

The medical report provided more of the same. Dr Derek Matthew had seen Tostee on many occasions between 2001 and 2006.

“Consultations are described as invariably remarkable in their intensity in respect of the need for lengthy explanations to reassure the patient,” the court heard.

“(He) states that … from an early age it has been observed that Tostee has above average intellect but at the same time is handicapped by behavioural problems that come partly under the umbrella of Asperger syndrome with very marked obsessional compulsive and anxiety features.”