Telephone date rape trial delayed

The trial of a Sydney man accused of drugging a woman he met through a telephone dating service and raping her teenage daughter has again been delayed while the court considers his fitness to plead. Arthur Fairwell, 38, was due to stand trial in the NSW District Court over the May 2004 drugging of a 50-year-old woman and her daughter, and the rape and assault of the 13-year-old at Bradbury, in Sydney's south-west. He is yet to enter a plea to 13 charges. Fairwell's lawyer Greg Scragg today successfully applied to have the trial stood over while the court considers Fairwell's fitness to plead. Mr Scragg said Fairwell was a paranoid schizophrenic who suspected mass conspiracies against him. He tendered a report from psychiatrist Yolande Lucire which described the unemployed disability pensioner's "patchy amnesia".

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