A boy who tried to murder a woman he met on the internet when he was 15 was turned away from an in-patient psychiatric facility before the incident due to a lack of beds, a court has heard.
The boy, now aged 17, met Stephanie Ng, then aged 25, on the Whisper social media app, on which he had pretended to be 19.
He tried to kill her during their first face-to-face meeting two days before Christmas 2017, after suggesting they take a photograph by the water’s edge in Dún Laoghaire. He then grabbed the woman from behind and choked her to unconsciousness before slashing her neck with a knife.
The boy’s mother told Mr Justice Michael White in the Central Criminal Court on Monday that she felt something terrible was going to happen in the period before the attack due to the boy’s mental state.
She said she and her husband had slept with their son in the livingroom in order to monitor him. She also said the administration of increasingly high doses of Prozac anti-depressants to him may explain his actions.
A court appointed psychiatrist previously said it was not clear if the drug had any influence on the boy’s offending behaviour.
The teenager, who is from south county Dublin, pleaded guilty to attempting to murder Ms Ng on December 23rd, 2017 at the seafront, Queen’s Road, Dún Laoghaire.
Reading from a prepared statement, his mother began her evidence by apologising to Ms Ng, who did not attend court on Monday.
‘Courage’
She said her son is remorseful and “takes full responsibility” for his actions.
“We are in awe of your incredible strength, courage, grace and dignity,” she said of Ms Ng. “We would do anything for this never to have happened.”
She said her son started to become “unwell” when he was 13. He suffered severe depression for 1½ years and began to hear voices in his head telling him to hurt himself or others, she said.
He withdrew into himself in secondary school and attempted suicide by overdose at 14 because he could not bear the voices anymore, his mother said.
She said a doctor informed her that the boy needed urgent in-patient care and the only place offering this was Linn Dara, a 24-bed facility in Ballyfermot, Dublin. However, she said Linn Dara told her it could not offer them a bed.
“When they told me I remember sitting with [my son] in the carpark crying. We were unable to drive for some time.”
She tried Pieta House which, while “very, very kind”, was not equipped to deal with someone as mentally ill as her son, she said. In the months before the attack “we were on edge waiting for something terrible to happen,” she said.
“We held him in our arms as he suffered the terrible voices and images that were torturing him.”
The boy attended the Lucena Clinic for an hour every fortnight where he was prescribed Prozac in increasingly doses causing “his mood to rise quickly.” The rise in his mood was a relief, she said, and as a result she allowed the dose to be increased once more, to 30mgs a day.
His high mood was part of a “perfect storm,” his mother said.
“Prozac definitely raised his mood and, looking back on it, too much.”
His mother said she allowed him to leave the house on the day of the attack and that his mood was still high when he returned a few hours later.
Remorse
The boy was put on anti-psychotics after being taken into custody in Oberstown following his arrest. This instantly caused the voices to stop, his mother said, and lead to him feeling great remorse for his actions.
Paul Burns SC, for the prosecution, reminded the judge that the woman was not an expert witness regarding medications.
In mitigation, defence counsel Patrick Gageby SC submitted that the boy had entered an early guilty plea and is remorseful. He suggested a detention and supervision order might be appropriate. This is a form of sentence where half of the term is spent in a detention centre and half is spent under supervision in the community.
However, Mr Burns said such a sentence could only be imposed on a child if they would still be under 18 on their release. He also noted that a judge cannot suspend any portion of a sentence if the offender is under 18.
Counsel told the judge it was still open to him to impose a sentence which could be “reviewed” by the court after a specified amount of time, as has happened in previous cases involving minors.
Mr Justice White said he needed time to consider the matter and adjourned sentencing until November 4th.
