The former Australian National University student who was found not guilty by reason of mental impairment of trying to murder his tutor and classmates with a baseball bat has been handed an indicative sentence of 10 years and four months jail.
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The indicative sentence sets a cap on how long Alex Ophel can be detained in custody, to prevent any unfairness that would follow from his being detained for longer than if he were found guilty of the crimes.
But because of the finding of not guilty by reason of mental impairment, he will be managed by the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal under the territory's mental health laws and will not be released from custody until his treating doctors find he no longer poses a risk.
A jury found Mr Ophel was mentally impaired at the time of the attack, after a trial earlier this year. The jury heard Mr Ophel had planned to attack his classmates and tutor with a baseball bat at a statistics tutorial that morning. During the attack in August 2017, he broke a student's arm and caused cracked skulls, and one student to lose a portion of a finger.
Mr Ophel appeared in the ACT Supreme Court to hear the indicative sentence, or what he would have been sentenced to if had been found guilty of the crimes.
The maximum penalty for attempted murder is life imprisonment.
But Justice John Burns said he had to take into account Mr Ophel's mental illness in sentencing. Justice Burns said Mr Ophel had been delusional and psychotic when he launched the classroom attack and his ability to know his conduct was wrong had been severely diminished. Mr Ophel has been diagnosed with schizophrenia since the attack, having until then gone undetected.
While Mr Ophel's symptoms had been drastically reduced on medication, he could still pose a risk to the public, if he was not compliant with his medication or if his symptoms worsened, the judge said. Clearly, he needed to be closely medically monitored for some years, Justice Burns said.
The judge set an indicative sentence of 10 years and four months beginning Wednesday (Mr Ophel has already spent 20 months in custody), to expire in September 2029.
Justice Burns also said that were it not for Mr Ophel's mental illness, the sentence would have been much longer.
