Man who threw daughter from bridge challenges his detention

A man who has been detained in the Central Mental Hospital for 16 years following a verdict that he was guilty but insane of the 1989 murder of his four-year-old daughter, whom he flung from a bridge into the River Blackwater in Co Waterford, has brought a High Court challenge to a decision of the Minister for Justice to rescind a programme for his phased release.

Mr Justice Liam McKechnie noted the challenge by Eamonn Daly, Ballyduff Upper, Co Waterford, raises an "interesting and important point" relating to whether certain provisions of the Trial of Lunatics Act 1883 - under which Daly is detained - are invalid under the Constitution and also breach Article 5 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

He directed the case proceed by plenary summons and that the Human Rights Commission be put on notice of it.

It will be contended that section 2 of the 1883 act fails to respect the right of Daly, under article 5 of the European convention, to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his detention can be decided speedily by a court and, where that detention is considered wrongful, to have his release ordered.

Among the reliefs sought by Daly are orders quashing the decision to suspend his temporary release and directing his release on the conditions set out by the advisory committee.

Yesterday, the court was told by David Keane, for Daly, that a programme of phased release was put in place by the Minister following a release recommendation of the department's sentence advisory body in 1999. That body had been told by the then director of the Central Mental Hospital, Dr Charles Smith, that it was his opinion Daly was now sane.

However, the court heard, Dr Smith's successor as director of the hospital, Dr Harry Kennedy, had reviewed the matter and, as a result of that, the phased release decision was unilaterally and without warning rescinded in January 2001.

Mr Keane said the programme of phased release had proceeded without incident and the department itself had noted this. However, it had been rescinded after Dr Kennedy had made claims of witnessing bullying by Daly of other inmates at the hospital. Daly had been given no opportunity to respond to such claims or to make representations prior to the rescinding of the programme.

The department had in a letter of March 29th, 2002, disclosed the parole programme had ceased as a result of risk assessment by the hospital and the hospital's interpretation of alleged incidents involving Daly's interaction with other patients.

Daly was found guilty but insane by a jury at the Central Criminal Court in October 1989 of the murder of his daughter Aileen at Lismore, Co Waterford some months earlier.

Dr Charles Smith had told the jury that Daly, then aged 37, was "totally deranged" when he flung the child from Lismore bridge on February 15th, 1989. He believed Daly was suffering from psychotic depression and from the delusion that he was destined for poverty and that his children would be better off not living.

Daly had tried to grab Aileen and another daughter, Linda, aged three. His wife had managed to get Linda back from her husband after a struggle but Daly went away with Aileen in his car to the bridge.