{"id":513444,"date":"2026-07-07T03:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/513444\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T03:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T03:39:09","slug":"charles-wharton-deemed-unfit-to-stand-trial-for-allegedly-bashing-child-to-death-with-hammer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/513444\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Wharton deemed unfit to stand trial for allegedly bashing child to death with hammer"},"content":{"rendered":"

He\u2019s then alleged to have attacked Woods<\/a> and Zahquiel\u2019s uncle, who struggled with Wharton before he left the house.<\/p>\n

When spoken to by police<\/a>, Wharton made admissions and told them that Zahquiel \u201cwas a demon\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 38-year-old appeared in the High Court at Hamilton this morning for a fitness to plead hearing before Justice Downs, who had five reports prepared by psychiatrists at various times over the past 22 months.<\/p>\n

The two most recent reports, prepared by Dr Peter Dean and Dr Jeremy Skipworth, found that Wharton was unfit to plead due to his schizophrenia.<\/p>\n

Relatives of the victims were in court for the hearing, with one standing and walking up to the glass, separating the public gallery from the dock, to silently confront Wharton as he was led back into custody. <\/p>\n

\u2018He\u2019s acting suspiciously\u2019<\/p>\n

An agreed summary of facts still needs to be confirmed by the Crown and defence, but in his brief description of what happened, Justice Downs confirmed Wharton had been living with the victims until two days before the attack.<\/p>\n

Something happened, and he left.<\/p>\n

On the day of the attack, \u201cpeople in the area\u201d reported Wharton to police, as they were worried he was acting suspiciously.<\/p>\n

Wharton went to the victim\u2019s home about 4.30pm.<\/p>\n

Zahquiel, his father, and uncle were all having an afternoon nap when Wharton entered the home, allegedly armed himself with a hammer, and repeatedly struck Zahquiel in the head, killing him.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s then alleged to have attacked the next two victims.<\/p>\n

\u2018He believes the killing was an accident\u2019<\/p>\n

Skipworth appeared via audio visual link to answer a handful of questions from Justice Downs, regarding his opinion of Wharton\u2019s mental impairment.<\/p>\n

Skipworth met with Wharton in March to assess his fitness, and also as to whether he would have a defence of insanity available to him.<\/p>\n

\"ZahquielZahquiel John Thomas Patrick Taipeti. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Wharton believes that his killing of Zahquiel was an accident?\u201d the judge asked him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is what he told me,\u201d the doctor replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s your opinion that that\u2019s a product of his delusional thinking?\u201d the judge responded.<\/p>\n

Skipworth said he believed Wharton\u2019s delusional thinking contributed to it, but there were likely other contributing factors, and he believed that Wharton likely had \u201cvery limited true memories\u201d of exactly what happened that day. <\/p>\n

Wharton had likely filled any gaps with \u201ceither delusional or confabulated memories\u201d.<\/p>\n

Although that thinking was likely a product of schizophrenia, confabulation was not a part of schizophrenia disorder, it was more the way in which Wharton filled that part of his memory.<\/p>\n

Asked if Wharton would carry that confabulated thinking into a trial, Skipworth said he believed Wharton\u2019s account of what happened would change every day, depending on his mood, including his level of paranoia, or whether he was feeling overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

Wharton would likely be inconsistent and his coherence \u201cfraught and unable to participate in proceedings\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"CharlesCharles Wharton. Photo \/ Facebook<\/p>\n

He said experts who had assessed him soon after the killing found there were \u201cclearly psychopathic links to his actions\u201d, which were also referenced in a DVD interview, but Wharton now made no reference to those issues.<\/p>\n

Asked by the judge if further treatment would help, Skipworth said Wharton had been receiving anti-psychotic medication for the majority of the time since his arrest, but that has only been partially successful. <\/p>\n

He said there wouldn\u2019t be any significant change unless he was admitted to hospital to have more intensive treatment and a review of his medication.<\/p>\n

\u2018His perception is compromised\u2019<\/p>\n

In delivering his decision, Justice Downs explained that an accused was deemed unfit to stand trial if they were unable to conduct a defence, instruct a lawyer, unable to plead, or to understand the consequences of doing so and the implications of a trial.<\/p>\n

He was satisfied that Wharton had a mental impairment and still suffered from intermittent auditory hallucinations, and the residual symptoms of psychosis.<\/p>\n

He noted that while three experts found Wharton fit to stand trial, their reports were prepared at the end of 2024, and into 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe heart of the case is that Mr Wharton appears to believe that his killing of Zahquiel was an accident.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe also appears to wish that his defence … be based on that proposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that Mr Wharton is not acting in his best interests, it is that his perception of Zahquiel\u2019s killing is compromised by his delusional thinking and that thinking is in turn, the product of mental impairment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defendant, because of his mental impairment, has concluded that they have done no wrong and wishes to conduct his defence accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Down found Wharton unfit to stand trial and remanded him in custody for a disposition hearing next month, to decide what should happen to him. <\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He\u2019s then alleged to have attacked Woods and Zahquiel\u2019s uncle, who struggled with Wharton before he left the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7818,255252,9861,2511,634,13023,2082,21140,111,43,139,69,14446,61,54,46107,86313,102],"class_list":["post-513444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-allegedly","tag-bashing","tag-charles","tag-child","tag-death","tag-deemed","tag-for","tag-hammer","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-stand","tag-to","tag-trial","tag-unfit","tag-wharton","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}