Murder accused suffering from PTSD and alcohol dependency, court told

A 47-year-old woman was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol dependency at the time she stabbed her partner to death, a psychiatrist has told her trial.

However, Dr Brenda Wright, testifying on behalf of the defence on Monday in the fourth week of the Louth woman’s murder trial at the Central Criminal Court, also told the prosecution that PTSD had not played a “significant role” in the killing.

Paula Farrell of Rathmullen Park in Drogheda has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter for the unlawful killing of Wayne “Quilly” McQuillan (30) at Ms Farrell’s home on New Year’s Day 2014.

The mother-of-three testified last week that Mr McQuillan had tried to have sex with her but she did not want to have sex and he had started strangling her before she went to the kitchen for a knife. Ms Farrell has accepted in her evidence that she stabbed Mr McQuillan with a knife four times but said she only remembered stabbing him twice.

Consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Wright on Monda said that the accused had difficulty regulating her emotional state and interacting with the world in a stable way. Ms Farrell was suffering from PTSD and alcohol dependancy disorder at the time of the killing , said Dr Wright. She told the court that she found Ms Farrell’s PTSD was at the “more severe end of the spectrum”.The trial continues .