Walcha sheep grazier Mathew Dunbar with partner Natasha Beth Darcy,who has been charged with murdering him.
During closing arguments on Monday,Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield said it “appeared to be” the defence case that Mr Dunbar was “so depressed he was going to kill himself no matter what”.
While Mr Hatfield said there was “no issue” that Mr Dunbar did suffer from depression,he said Ms Darcy “exploited this and she killed him in the manner that she did to make it look like a suicide”.
He said Mr Dunbar’s psychiatrist,the only psychiatric expert at the trial who spoke to the deceased,formed the opinion that,while Mr Dunbar did have depression,it only arose in reaction to the situation he found himself in living with Ms Darcy.
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The psychiatrist,Clive Stanton,told the court Mr Dunbar told him he had begun to worry about his finances for the first time in his life after Ms Darcy moved in with her three children,and their relationship had “deteriorated” with Ms Darcy making “cruel comments that played on his mind”.
He told Dr Stanton he felt “emotionally manipulated” by Ms Darcy,who accused him of cheating and asked him “if the rafters in the shed were high enough for him to hang himself”,Mr Hatfield said.
Dr Stanton considered Mr Dunbar to be “a vulnerable man who was being exploited by Ms Darcy” but he did not think it likely he would commit suicide at that stage,Mr Hatfield said.