A man has overturned a 20-year jail sentence for murder after a court found delusions his girlfriend was a demon as he strangled her were the first onset of schizophrenia.
He later told a triple-zero operator and police that he believed Wardle was a demon at the time of the attack.Miller was convicted of murder by a NSW Supreme Court jury in June 2022 and sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison, with a non-parole period of 13 years. He appealed both the conviction and sentence, telling the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal that since the trial he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and his symptoms were ongoing.
"The court is satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the applicant had a 'mental health impairment', as defined, namely schizophrenia, at the time he carried out the act of killing Wardle," the three-judge panel wrote.