Her suicide note counted for nothing

Conservative rulings by coroners disguise tragic scale of NZ’s problem, experts say. Amy Maas investigates.

There was a suicide note on a pad next to her bed.

That is where her mother found the 26-year-old Wellington artist, loved by her family and all who knew her.

Her father is speaking out this weekend after learning that New Zealand’s suicide rate might be far higher than coroners’ rulings suggest.

Despite hearing the details of the events leading up to the woman’s death, and the suicide note, a coroner had ruled there was not enough evidence to prove whether she was ‘‘then mentally capable of forming an intention to take her life’’.

The number of New Zealanders officially listed as having died by suicide or suspected suicide between June 2014 and May 2015 was 569 – the highest ever recorded.

‘‘It begs the question whether the numbers are real,’’ said the woman’s father. ‘‘The statistics need to be right so that the right amount of funds are allocated to the mental health sector.’’

Officially, at least 11 people a week die by suicide. But Timaru based GP Dr Oliver Bourke warned that the true number could be three times higher. ‘‘I honestly think people have no idea how many people die by suicide,’’ he said. ‘‘These figures are awful.’’

If a coroner is not satisfied that a death can be ruled a suicide, then it is classified under a different category, such as an accident, or the cause is simply declared undetermined.

‘‘If they don’t want to call it a suicide, it’s got to be classified as self-inflicted,’’ the woman’s father said.

‘‘To actually realise that number is wildly different caught me by surprise. If people knew that, they’d see it as a bigger issue than we ever imagined.’’

Former Chief Coroner Neil MacLean said the number of recorded suicides in New Zealand should be taken ‘‘with a large grain of salt’’.

‘‘Some people could fall through the gaps because just relying on raw suicide numbers isn’t giving us the true number,’’ he said.

Each case was judged on whether the evidence proved the person deliberately intended to take their life, Judge MacLean said.

‘‘That would include making a determination that it wasn’t just an accident or indulging in risky behaviour without thinking of the consequences.

‘‘The coroner has to be sure they had the mental capacity to take their own life. That has to be established at a pretty high level, you have to be sure. If there is any reasonably plausible alternative that suggests that they didn’t have that intent then the coroner shouldn’t make that finding.’’

Asked whether the open rulings could mask the true rate, Judge MacLean said he would ‘‘like to think not’’, as the 16 coroners and the chief coroner were ‘‘fulltime professionals, well-trained in psychological and psychiatric aspects of suicide. They really study this in great detail’’.

Dr Bourke said the threshold for ruling a death was a suicide was set so high that the real toll was far off the reported number.

‘‘When you get clear-cut cases, there would be at least as many again that a coroner couldn’t give a ruling on because there is a slight doubt.’’

Meanwhile, the father of the Wellington artist said the family discovered during the inquest that she had called Lifeline for support on the day she died. But the family had not been told she had contemplated taking her own life.

‘‘We couldn’t contact her because her mobile was turned off. She was isolating herself. If we’d known we would have gone round there,’’ he said.

Instead, after not hearing from their daughter for two days, his wife drove to where she was staying and found her lying dead on her bed.