THE curious case of Paul Douglas Peters has given psychiatrists a difficult assignment - with one expert yesterday telling a court the mind and intermittent psychotic episodes of the hoax collar-bomber "presents a problem as complex as any I have ever had to tackle".
Peters' thoughts as he entered Madeleine Pulver's Mosman home last August to strap a fake collar-bomb to her neck may never be known, with the teenager's father yesterday adding the hoaxer "was unlucky not to get away with this".
The task of getting into the mind of Peters, who pleaded guilty to the failed extortion attempt earlier this year and is awaiting sentence, has left one psychiatrist declaring the 52-year-old provided "one of the most difficult examinations I've ever had to carry out".
"This man was intermittently psychotic over a long period of time," consultant psychiatrist Jonathan Phillips told the Sydney District Court.
Madeleine's father Bill Pulver said outside court "it's clear this is simply an extortion case" from "a pretty flawed individual" but added that his daughter didn't know there was an extortion note attached when she hysterically called him for help.
"If I'd known it was an extortion letter I ask myself the question many times would I have actually rung the police and I'm really not sure what I would have done," Mr Pulver said.Dr Phillips, the second of three psychiatrists to attempt to shed insight into Peters' mind ahead of his sentencing, said the man he provided two reports on is "articulate", "intelligent" and able to live a life largely "free of mental illness".
But when questioned about his novel, the tome the one-time investment banker spent a decade writing, the collar-bomb hoaxer becomes "manic" and shows signs of "a breach from reality", the court heard.
The court heard Peters suffers "memory gaps" of the night of August 3, 2011, and can't remember anything between arriving at the Pulver home and then reconnecting with himself at his Avoca house hours later.
CCTV images tendered to the court show that at 6pm on that night, as police officers struggled to remove the device from Ms Pulver, Peters discussed wines with an employee of the Avoca Beach Cellars bottle shop.
Judge Peter Zahra will next Wednesday hear submissions about what sentence Peters should receive.
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