Perfect Victim (31 page)

Her simmering anger seems to grow following her parents’ separation when she is sixteen, and is further magnified when her father embarks on a new relationship and later remarries. The disruption to Robertson caused by this family breakdown, said Mr Lovitt, was profound.

All of this highlighted the glaring disparity between Robertson’s unhappy life and that of her victim. Robertson was shattered, experiencing ‘severe difficulties’ with both parents – particularly her mother. She refers in one of her self-hate lists to having no family and in distancing herself from her parents she already appears to have begun the slow process of dissociating herself from the Caroline she loathes. She refuses to address her parents as ‘Mum’ or ‘Dad’, signing off in names other than her own. Even back then, in 1993, there were indications that the awfulness of her life, and her intense self-anger, had begun to manifest itself in a strong desire to escape what she described as her ‘blue cardigan life’ – by being someone else. She signs off her letters often using different names: sometimes she’s Rebekah, sometimes Charley Robertson, sometimes
Reid
Robertson. Occasionally she uses the signatory ‘Spotty Dotty’ or the ‘Hellraiser’. In her own mind she is now no longer Caroline Reid. And then in 1998 she actually does change her name by deed poll, retaining the name Reid but changing the spelling and becoming Caroline Reed Robertson.

In one of the few optimistic letters tendered to the Supreme Court, Robertson says that it is time she moved on in her life. She appears in this brief notation to have had some glimpse of a more positive future, saying it is time for a fresh start and expressing a desire to move to a new home in a new suburb. She will start a new school and take up new hobbies. But the hint of wanting to be a whole new person is still very much in evidence, even in this letter. She ends the letter angrily, stating she is still ‘harping on’ about wanting a new name. Caroline, or ‘Carrie’ as she calls herself, is a product ‘of the shit’.

Robertson’s treating psychologist, Michael Crewdson, said she saw herself as ‘the bad kid’ in the family, failing everyone’s expectations. In revenge, her aggression was directed back at her family. She stole from them and lied. David Reid, one doctor noted, described her as a manipulative, sometimes frightening girl. Rapke, for the Crown, told the plea hearing that although no application had ever been made for bail on Robertson’s behalf, any such application would have resulted in David Reid lodging an objection – on the grounds that five other women would have feared for their lives.

Crewdson wrote that Robertson felt alienated and perceived a sense of unfairness permeating her life: ‘Others seem to have good lives – Caroline has shit. She once painted and hung a portrait of herself, which was completely black.’

This black mindset coloured Robertson’s teen years completely. She lashes out at her family for not being the ‘perfect child’ she claims they wanted her to be. In another furious letter to her parents, she apologises to her mother for having been born, stating that she wishes she’d been aborted before birth. Her punishment for living, she says, is to live the life of a ‘cursed alien’. She writes about an alien-like force inside her that compels her to commit despicable and objectionable acts like cheating, lying, stealing, swearing and screaming. She claims these feelings were there at her birth. Now, even as she verges on adult life, she perceives herself to be an older version of the same angry, confused child.

Then, in a pathetic apology, she professes to feel sorry for her parents and vaguely acknowledges the hurt and pain she is causing to her family. ‘I’m sorry I’m not a perfect kid,’ she says. ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

In the Supreme Court, Justice Vincent asked the defence a question: ‘What, if any, response was made to these various calls by her?’

Mr Lovitt responded: ‘It would seem very little, Your Honour …’ But this was only Robertson’s perception of events, he said, that when she cried out for help, none was forthcoming.

‘One has to differentiate between things that she says as being true and things that she is believing were true,’ said Lovitt. ‘It is clear that the disruption to her family had a profound effect on her in a way that clearly we can happily say doesn’t normally occur but certainly has in this case.’

Little wonder then that, filled with such self-hate, Robertson’s depressive state of mind would spiral downwards over the years to a point where she would plot and scheme to leave it behind for ever. That she would create a fantasy in her mind in the form of a new persona – one that she would create through cosmetic surgery, weight loss and disguise. One that she would kill for.

By her mid-teens Caroline Reid described her life as a living hell – if she could magically change herself, then she and her life would be perfect. Being perfect meant she would finally be happy.

One of her letters talks about her aspirations to achieve total perfection and she fantasises about a distant scenario where she would one day appear on TV and amaze all her old acquaintances with a fabulous new persona. She refers to a segment on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ in which old friends are reunited with people from their past. The segment, with the title ‘If You Could See Me Now’ appears to have captured her imagination and in her writings she had already projected herself into this fantasy scene where she’d reveal herself as a transformed star. This, she pondered vengefully, would be fitting justice for all the people in her life that had ever insulted or underestimated her determination and talent. The newly invented Caroline would be a million miles away from the ‘little deadbeat scum bag’ they remembered. She would show everyone.

Robertson, it appears, pursued this fantasy of becoming a famous somebody with tragic desperation. She blamed her parents for her own lack of achievement in life. When she became a parent, she says, she would ensure everything was ‘set up perfectly’ to help her children achieve their dreams. She wrote of her plans to do this; by recruiting an agent for them; by organising dancing classes, acting courses and singing lessons. She would do everything in her power to make sure her children made it.

These letters were written five full years before she found a symbol for her fantasy. That symbol was Rachel Barber, according to Caroline – the perfect girl.

All of this evidence then seems to beg the question: was Robertson mad when she killed Rachel Barber? Mr Lovitt argued that while she might not have been legally insane at the time she murdered, her writings nevertheless showed that she was profoundly disturbed. Experts assessing Robertson agreed: there was no evidence of any recognised mental illness. They were divided on the subject of whether she had been actively depressed at the time of the crime, but agreed she’d been significantly depressed following her detection and arrest. All agreed she now suffered from a major depressive illness.

‘She could tell me that she felt the worst she’d ever felt and she described feelings of helplessness which you often see in someone who suffers a major depressive illness, a psychiatric illness,’ said Dr Barry-Walsh. But he said that while he could find no other symptoms to support the diagnosis that she was suffering from an identifiable psychiatric illness at the time of the offence, he couldn’t discount it either, just that he believed it was
possible
that she was actively depressed. ‘I couldn’t put it higher than that,’ he said.

‘I think the two most striking things are her recurrent self-denigratory comments, and just the sort of avalanche of them,’ Dr Barry-Walsh continued.

‘The other thing that struck me was her relationship with her father, someone that she had problems relating to, but nevertheless she clearly very much wanted to have a relationship and saw it as being very important. But the theme of self-esteem just recurs, just its content and prevalence through the writings.’

In his opinion the murder of Rachel Barber was the product of a disturbed, dysfunctional woman with a ‘marked disorder of personality’. Robertson’s belief that she was a misfit among her peers had been reinforced, the court heard, when she developed epilepsy in her mid-teens, heightening her feelings of abnormality and ‘otherness’.

Barry-Walsh said that while many of the fits were genuine epileptic seizures, some of the evidence suggested that others might have been subconsciously precipitated by stress. He agreed with Justice Vincent’s observations that some of the episodes could have been ‘pseudo-fits’, but this didn’t mean she was ‘faking’ them. They could have been anxiety-induced: her subconscious was seeking temporary escape from stress.

Like the other experts, however, he conceded that Robertson had been fit to plead to the charge of murder and knew right from wrong when she killed her victim. She was not, he said, legally insane.

However, a clinical forensic psychologist, Mr Jeffrey Cummins, later stated that her disturbed state of mind at the time of the killing raised questions about her ability to appreciate her
blameworthiness
for her conduct. He said her writings, her mental state in her mid to late teens and her unhappy family background had contributed to her ‘extreme and bizarre’ behaviour at the time of the crime, leading him to form the view that she was ‘in part out of touch with reality’.

But quite unexpectedly, Mr Cummins’s testimony led to fresh evidence emerging that offered a new explanation for the cause of the defendant’s psychological state.

Justice Vincent told Mr Cummins he wanted to explore a previously unaired issue that had not received much attention during the hearing. Directing Cummins to a section of his report on Robertson, the judge asked if there was any ‘real substance’ to the defendant’s claims that she had been the childhood victim of some past sexual trauma. His Honour said that if there was any truth to these allegations, it might explain Robertson’s low self-esteem and self-hatred from a young age.

‘At the end of the day, I have to consider what sentence is to be imposed upon this young woman,’ Justice Vincent said. ‘It is one thing to regard as inexplicable the development of an intense degree of self-hatred, an intense degree of animosity towards others and jealousy and envy and so forth, and a preparedness to destroy – not only her own personality, but the life of someone else as a consequence. That’s a very difficult scenario to contemplate in a variety of senses,’ he said.

But if these behaviours, he continued, were placed in the context of a young woman ‘abused from a young age, and badly’ then the existence of such a background history might explain her warped frame of mind, her low self-esteem and make her writings ‘entirely consistent’ with a history of sexual trauma. What otherwise appeared to be an inexplicable murder might then be better understood.

‘The white picket fence references, and all that sort of thing,’ Justice Vincent asked, ‘are all, of course, very easily integrated into that kind of scenario?’ Justice Vincent said everyone had been ‘very coy’ about discussing the issue and was aware that Robertson herself had not wanted the alleged sexual abuse story raised in her defence. This placed her barrister in a difficult position, constrained by his client’s instructions. And he said that while he accepted Mr Cummins’s refusal to breach doctor-patient confidentiality by elaborating on the prisoner’s alleged past, the question of whether she had truly been the victim of sexual abuse was relevant when considering rehabilitation and sentencing.

‘What is presented before me is a history of childhood sexual abuse which, of course, to my observation and experience, over many years, can produce enormous personal damage and lack of self-esteem in young teenagers,’ said the judge. ‘How prominently do you perceive that consideration as featuring in your analysis of her situation?’

‘Very significantly, Your Honour,’ responded the witness.

Mr Cummins said he didn’t believe Robertson had concocted the story to attract sympathy, since she would then have raised the issue much earlier in her assessment and insisted on having it aired in court to assist her. Instead she had refused to allow the matters to be raised, or even explored further, which was of no benefit to her at all.

Cummins agreed though, that Robertson had told her story only
after
being probed about possible abuse. He said he would raise issues of sexual abuse routinely in such cases, agreeing that he had already read about her claims of abuse in Crewdson’s report. During his assessment Robertson gave more details but said she didn’t want them repeated.

Robertson, he said, was now more psychologically at ease than she had been in years. He said it was his view that she was now exhibiting symptoms indicative of reactive agitated depression, thought to be a response to immediate stressors such as the court case and her present incarceration. Mr Cummins said he, like Mr Crewdson, had also identified a number of aspects of her presentation which were consistent with Robertson possibly having a borderline personality disorder, though he was more inclined to say that her negative ruminative thinking, low self-esteem and self-doubting were more consistent with major depression.

Justice Vincent then took an unusual step. He decided to call Robertson’s treating psychologist, Michael Crewdson, into the witness box. This was the man who, many speculated, offered the greatest insight into the prisoner’s behaviour. He had seen her every week since her arrest and knew most about her. Surprisingly, he was the only medical expert who had not been called as a key witness for the defence.

‘It is not the practice for judges, nor is it appropriate for judges, to be calling witnesses who the parties have decided not to call before them on a plea,’ said Justice Vincent. ‘But in the particular circumstances of this matter, and because of personal concerns which I experience in relation to the way in which I have to go about dealing with this matter, I decided that it was appropriate for me to do so.’

The judge wanted to explore further the possibility of sexual abuse. ‘I don’t know how far I can take it,’ responded Crewdson, referring to professional doctor-patient confidentiality. He did, however, confirm that the details of Robertson’s alleged abuse, while limited, appeared to cause ‘an immense amount of distress’ to her. If the statements were true, he said, they provided the court with a clinically demonstrable track through the self-esteem issues, the depression and the teenage years themselves – explaining the crime as ‘an acting out of internal conflicts’. But whether the prisoner’s story was founded in reality or not, her eventual act of strangling the young dancer, and her mental state leading up to the killing, illustrated a ‘common joining together of issues’, he said.