Justice Peter Hamill found Mr Smith was probably suffering from schizophrenia with a delusional belief system, which meant he could not reason about whether his actions were wrong.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5febe185a892226bb003d7dec0fac979.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Mavis Stanley is remembered by friends and family as a strong, caring woman with a big heart. (ABC Western Plains: Jennifer McCutcheon)<\/p>\n
Ms Stanley’s daughter Jennah-Leigh Dungay told the court there were no words in the English dictionary that could describe the “pain, sorrow, hurt and brokenness” caused by her mother’s death.<\/p>\n
“You have stolen a future that none of us will ever get to experience,” she said.<\/p>\n
“My mother was the matriarchal protector of our family, the strength when it was needed and not needed.”<\/p>\n
Ms Dungay addressed Mr Smith, who appeared in the Dubbo courtroom via audio-visual link.<\/p>\n
“The extent of the damage caused is unforgivable, unjust, uncultured and in its shortest form a pure evil,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We are told it took 15 minutes of brutality using weapons to end my mother’s life.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1f9297fb0106d1754723fc1ff8c2fe7a.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The body of Mavis Stanley was discovered outside her home on October 29. (ABC Western Plains: Catherine James)<\/p>\n
“Fifteen minutes to dismantle our family’s and friends’ hearts forever.”<\/p>\n
Ms Dungay said she had experienced significant mental health impacts since her mother’s death and wanted to see laws strengthened to protect women and children, particularly Indigenous people.<\/p>\n
“When a woman has a daughter, she creates a version of her heart that walks in physical form,” she told the court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“So long as I breathe and live, she will speak and live through me.<\/p>\n
“Her physical body you may have taken from us, but you will never take her spirit, soul and memory and laughter she left within each of us.”<\/p>\n
![\"Police](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1e2ed5681dc140739bbae9e8cccb809b.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
A homicide investigation was launched after a woman’s body was found at Bourke, in the NSW north west. (ABC Western Plains: Catherine James)<\/p>\n
Accused suffering delusional beliefs<\/p>\n
The court heard Mr Smith and Ms Stanley were living in Bourke when, some time between October 26 and 29, he struck her multiple times with a rod-like object, inflicting blunt force injuries that caused her death.<\/p>\n
Mr Smith later moved Ms Stanley’s body from the home and left her on the roadway.<\/p>\n
Two forensic psychiatrists assessed Mr Smith and agreed he was experiencing delusions around the time of Ms Stanley’s death.<\/p>\n
Listening-device recordings from his prison cell captured Mr Smith speaking to a deity and, on other occasions, apparently to his dead partner.<\/p>\n
“Lord you set my life up for failure \u2026 I love my wife my Lord \u2026 then the devil came up and ripped the heart right out of my chest,” he was recorded saying.<\/p>\n
Justice Hamill said the recordings showed Mr Smith was “very unwell”, thought-disordered and delusional, and may have been experiencing auditory hallucinations.<\/p>\n
The judge said he had carefully considered the couple’s history of domestic violence and Mr Smith’s controlling behaviour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But he accepted the psychiatrists’ evidence that his beliefs about Ms Stanley’s infidelity were driven by delusions.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/015f73cacf2b0a466e0073b268b188e9.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Ms Stanley was found dead outside her home in Bourke, about 370 kilometres from Dubbo. (ABC Western Plains: Zaarkacha Marlan)<\/p>\n
“I am satisfied that his preoccupation with Ms Stanley’s perceived infidelity was born not of a rational but wicked jealousy, but rather was \u2026 the product of his disordered thought processes and delusions at the time of the killing,” Justice Hamill said.<\/p>\n
He found Mr Smith did not understand his actions were wrong and entered the special verdict.<\/p>\n
Justice Hamill acknowledged the words “not criminally responsible” could appear difficult or unjust to Ms Stanley’s family, but stressed the verdict did not mean Mr Smith would be released.<\/p>\n
‘Our hearts are broken’<\/p>\n
Several members of Ms Stanley’s family travelled to court to deliver victim impact statements, describing her as a strong and fiercely loyal woman who was deeply connected to her family.<\/p>\n
Her relatives told the court they had struggled with grief, sleeplessness and fear since her death, and had become increasingly vigilant about the safety of women in their family.<\/p>\n
In one statement, Ms Stanley was remembered as “one of a kind” with a “big heart”, whose death had left a piece of the family’s hearts that would never mend.<\/p>\n
Another statement described the 47-year-old as the “rock” of her family, with a “wicked sense of humour” and a laugh her loved ones could still hear.<\/p>\n
The court heard her family had been unable to prepare and farewell Ms Stanley’s body in accordance with their cultural practices because of the extent of her injuries.<\/p>\n
Justice Hamill praised the family’s courage and dignity throughout the proceedings.<\/p>\n
“These statements will remain on the court’s records and archives as an enduring testament to a remarkable woman whose life was taken too soon and by violence,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The daughter of an Indigenous woman beaten to death by her partner in outback New South Wales says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2312,111529,22,21,111525,4841,46,111526,3162,111528,3183,111527],"class_list":["post-75672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-aboriginal","tag-andrew-charles-smith","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-bourke","tag-domestic-violence","tag-killing","tag-mavis-stanley","tag-mental-health","tag-not-criminally-responsible","tag-nsw-supreme-court","tag-special-verdict"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}