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For anyone who saw the comments by Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday, in which he voiced conspiracy theories about the trial of terrorist Thomas Mair and claimed there was overlooked mental health evidence, this thread sets out some cool hard facts.
I’ll add one final observation, given that a quick peek at Mr Hitchens’ recent shows that he continues to labour under the same misapprehensions. And it’s to do with psychiatric reports in criminal cases.
Hitchens is getting very agitated about the fact that no formal psychiatric reports were put before the courts in Mair’s trial or sentence. He keeps tweeting other cases of political violence where evidence related to mental health *was* put before the court. This is a misnomer.
Psychiatric reports are usually obtained by the defence. Where defence legal representatives are aware of potential mental health issues, they will obtain a psychiatric report. This psychiatric report will usually be asked to address one or more of three things:
1. Whether the defendant is “fit to plead” - can he participate meaningfully in his trial? If a psychiatrist, applying the below test, concludes that he is not fit to plead, a further report is obtained and a judge hearing the evidence makes the ultimate decision. 
If unfit to plead, there is a modified trial procedure in which the defendant plays no part, where there is no criminal conviction at the end (just a “finding of whether the accused did the act) and the court’s powers are limited to therapeutic or rehabilitative options:
2. The second issue that a psychiatric report will usually address is whether there is any legal defence to the charge arising out of the defendant’s condition. In murder cases, this includes diminished responsibility, insanity and inability to form specific intent.
3. The third issue that psychiatric report may address arises on sentence after conviction: are there any mental health issues which either form helpful mitigation (reducing the defendant’s culpability) or propose alternative disposals to custody, such as a hospital order.
Now, the headline (which Hitchens seems to miss) is that the psychiatric report carries legal privilege. If the defence do not wish to serve it on the court or prosecution, they don’t have to.
Many, many psychiatric reports are obtained and never served.
Many, many psychiatric reports are obtained and never served.
The absence of a psychiatric report in the public domain does *not* mean that psychiatric issues have not been fully considered. That can happen, but in the vast bulk of cases it is because the report’s contents do not assist the defence case.
A psychiatric report may detail a history of contact with mental health services, but conclude that there is nothing *legally relevant* to the defence case. It might, if the defendant has made admissions or comments to the doctor, be completely unhelpful to the defence.
Back to the case of Thomas Mair, about which Hitchens is obsessing. We don’t know what reports were obtained or what they said. But we do know that at a pre-trial hearing, the defence confirmed in court that relevant mental health issues had been explored and nothing arose.
The bottom line is that nobody except the defence lawyers knows the full details. And errors can of course occur. However there is absolutely no factual basis for Hitchens to suggest that there was an injustice due to failure to properly take into account Mair’s mental health.
As for the ancillary claim by Hitchens that this was wrongly treated as a political murder, I refer again to the sentencing remarks of the judge who heard all the evidence.
The problem appears to be Hitchens’ inability to understand that an individual can have had contact with mental health services and still be capable and culpable of committing acts of terrorism. The two are not mutually exclusive. How he can not grasp this is bizarre.
