Kota Kinabalu: THE Coroner’s Court was told on Wednesday that Zara Qairina Mahathir’s own written diaries documenting her various difficulties represented the most critical and uncontaminated pre-mortem data.
Consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Chua Sze Hung, a recalled deponent, said this while testifying before Coroner Amir Shah Amir Hassan.
When asked by Conducting Officer Nahra Dollah whether an assessment of a surviving parent was a proper substitute for an assessment of the deceased adolescent’s mental state, Dr Chua replied, “No”.
Dr Chua was also asked about consultant psychiatrist Dr Simon Wong devoting a section of his report to a “Psychiatric Assessment of the Mother”, based on an interview conducted on Jan 5 this year, almost six months after Zara’s death.
“In the context and framework of psychological autopsy, assessing the mother is not needed. The focus is to assist the court in determining the manner of death of the deceased, and the way forward is a psychological autopsy.
“An assessment of the surviving parent is not a proper clinical or methodological substitute for a retrospective assessment of the deceased adolescent’s mental state.
“In forensic psychiatry, attempting to swap the two represents a category error, a clinical mismatch that mixes up two different subjects, timelines and psychological realities. These are two distinct clinical subjects,” he said.
In response to another question, Dr Chua said Zara’s timeline was retrospective and related to the manner of death, while the assessment of her mother, conducted nearly six months after the incident, evaluated the mother’s current mental state.
“A cross-sectional psychiatric diagnosis or non-diagnosis of the mother’s current mental state is of little help in understanding the adolescent’s symptom load and final suicidal intent,” he said.
Dr Chua also said forensic literature warned that survivors in death inquiries could be interested parties whose recollections might be coloured by guilt, anger and shame.
