Jean Eric Gassy

Jean Eric Gassy is a deregistered medical practitioner who was convicted in October 2004 of the murder on 14 October 2002 of Dr. Margaret Tobin, then the head of government mental health services in South Australia. Dr Tobin (born 23 September 1954),^[1] was shot four times as she was walking away from the lift that she had taken to the eighth floor of the office in which she worked. Jean Eric Gassy rented a vehicle from Bayswater Car Rental in Kings Cross from Jarrod Kluck, he then proceeded to the airport and removed the number plates before taking them to South Australia and using them on another vehicle, this was later proven when upon return of the vehicle to Brett Carneson of Bayswater Car Rental in Kings Cross, he had only traveled 116 kilometres in the car, the Director Arnold Kluck also gave evidence confirming Jean Eric Gassy as the renter of the vehicle.

Gassy was struck off in 1997 after being diagnosed with a delusional disorder and refusing to comply with conditions placed on his registration.^[2] Gassy's motive was that the person who initiated that deregistration process - by first raising his eligibility to be a psychiatrist — was Dr Tobin, his former boss.^[3] Gassy was later found to possess a "hit list" of doctors involved in his deregistration,^[4] as well as a HIV specialist who refused to treat him after the delusional former doctor became convinced he had contracted the virus.^[5]

Gassy was originally sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder. However, on 14 May 2008 both his conviction and sentence were quashed by the High Court of Australia following an appeal during which Gassy had represented himself. The High Court noted that "the trial judge's directions to a jury deadlocked after a day and a half of deliberations lacked neutrality, causing a substantial miscarriage of justice."^[6][7][8]

Gassy's retrial on the same charge took place in April 2009 and he was convicted on 6 May 2009.^[9]

Aftermath

The Dr Margaret Tobin Awards were established in 2004 to publicly recognise people or organisations that have made an outstanding contribution to mental health in South Australia.^[10]

In October 2006, the Margaret Tobin Centre, a 40 bed "state of the art" mental health inpatient centre was constructed on the grounds of the Flinders Medical Centre.

References