Psychiatrist recalls Sockburn killer Zakariye Mohamed Hussein's 'dark and menacing' anger

A psychiatrist who treated a mental health patient who murdered a Christchurch woman in the street says the man had spells of "dark and menacing" anger, an inquest has heard.

Laisa Waka Tunidau was stabbed to death by Zakariye Mohamed Hussein outside her Sockburn home on 25 June 2022, while Hussein was on unescorted leave from Hillmorton Hospital. Hussein was jailed for life with a 13-year non-parole period in November that year, and had previously been jailed for more than six years for kidnapping, stabbing and intimidating people across Christchurch in March 2012.

Hillmorton's risk assessment procedures were examined at the inquest in Christchurch on Thursday, with further testimony from Hussein's treating clinician, whose identity is suppressed.

Further questions about Hussein's psychological profile were raised in light of several threatening letters he wrote in September 2021, some of which targeted then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. The letters also referenced conspiracy theories and multiple terror attacks staged in New Zealand and Australia. The clinician referred Hussein to New Zealand's Fixated Threat Assessment Centre (FTAC) as a result.

Waka Tunidau family lawyer Nikki Pender asked the clinician about Hussein's written comments two weeks after a mass stabbing at a Countdown supermarket in the West Auckland suburb of New Lynn in September 2021. The attacker, Ahamed Samsudeen, was being followed by police officers, who intervened during the attack, shooting and killing him after he charged at them.

"He referred to the recent stabbing at a supermarket in Auckland about this person [who] should have been deported and that if he himself was not deported, then he would also end up going on a killing spree," Pender said.

The clinician did not believe the attack was a catalyst for Hussein's threatening behaviour but said it was a period when he entered "quite a psychotic presentation". Pender later asked whether Hussein's recognition of a link to Samsudeen should have warranted a deeper risk analysis. The clinician said there was a lot of "odd content" and threats against both them and the prime minister at the time.

Coroner Alexandra Cunninghame asked the clinician about comments by another psychiatrist involved in the FTAC referral that Hussein was occasionally incorporating "Islamic violent extremism themes".

"I guess that in those moments when he's very psychotic, that he sort of became very dark and menacing and that was one of the themes that could be there," they said.

The clinician recalled a "flare-up" in 2015.

"He looked like a different human being. His look and his intensity, it was incredibly scary," they said.

"I remember an incident when he had ended up with a tennis racket on the lawn and we'd been watching him get unwell.

"When he was profoundly paranoid and psychotic, it wasn't something that came and went. It was something that was there, ever present and incredibly menacing, incredibly risky."

Pender also pressed the clinician on how Hussein's file was managed and documented after police laid charges for an assault against a nurse in December 2021. The clinician said communication lines between police and mental health services weren't always the best.

"We'd always really wanted more contact and engagement with the police," they said.

"I remember past cases where there hadn't been an indication that charges would be laid and that I'd made contacts without luck, but it hadn't been something that had happened in the past."

"We'd often wait for the process to happen and then hear what the police were doing and what the plan was, what the charge was, those sorts of things."

More than 20 doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists and nurses involved in Hussein's care were due to give evidence during the inquest.