Tranquillisers and alcohol taken by a Galway woman on the day she stabbed her partner to death were "major contributors to her inability to control herself but they were not the only ones", a murder trial jury has been told at the Central Criminal Court. Dr Brian McCaffrey, a clinical director of psychiatry at the Eastern Health Board, was being cross-examined by the prosecution in the trial of Ms Kathleen Bell (36), who admits the manslaughter but denies the murder of Mr Patrick Sammon (42) at her home in Camilaun Park, Newcastle, Galway on June 20th, 1999.
Dr McCaffrey told Mr Marcus Daly SC, prosecuting, that Ms Bell was referred to him in January of this year purely for assessment. He said the dose of eight Lexotan and six Zanax tablets she took on the day before the killing was "very excessive". The tablets were both benzodiazepines, or tranquilisers, he said.
A letter from her Galway GP informed him that in the five years prior to the killing, Ms Bell had been mainly taking medicine for high blood pressure "with only occasional requests for tranquilisers".
Under cross-examination, Dr McCaffrey was asked would the doctors in Galway who had dealings with the defendant for 15 years not be more equipped to know all about her. He replied: "Not necessarily." The three consultants in University College Hospital, Galway covered a large area and many patients, he said, and would have to depend a lot on junior doctors and registrars. "I am in exactly the same situation," Dr McCaffrey said. He believed he was the first person that Ms Kathleen Bell spoke to about her "horrific history". He felt that at the present time, he knew her more than anyone else.
Dr McCaffrey said although he went along with the Galway doctors' diagnosis of a personality disorder he preferred to call it a behavioural disorder.
"She went into taking that medication in quite an innocent fashion," he said. "She took it as a medication, not as a self-destructive act."
Mr Daly put it to the witness that Ms Bell gave three coherent accounts of the killing to gardai on the morning it happened. Dr McCaffrey said he was not sure they were full accounts.
He said that perhaps there was a difference of style in the Garda interviews as compared to his, and that he had "delved a bit deeper".
He said that in both her statements to gardai and in his interviews with her, it was clear that she did not know the number of times she had stabbed Mr Sammon. He agreed that he was attaching a lot of importance to this fact. "I think it is of significance," he said. He accepted that Ms Bell had initially tried to conceal the facts of the stabbing. i a false account of what happened when they arrived at her house.
Dr McCaffrey said this was consistent with someone who was out of control. The drugs and alcohol she took were "major contributors to her inability to control herself but they were not the only ones", he said.
Mr Daly put it to him that it was the amount of drugs and alcohol that she had voluntarily taken that made Pat Sammon's abusive remarks have such an effect on her on the Thursday night.
Dr McCaffrey repeated that they were major contributors but not the only ones.
"The drugs and alcohol would not have been sufficient to tip the scales."
He said what did tip the scales was the extreme emotional pain she was suffering: Sammon's taunting of her about her childhood sexual abuse; his combined verbal attack on both the sister she was grieving for and herself and the obscene remark he made reminding her of her abuse.
The defence evidence concluded yesterday. Closing speeches will be heard on Monday.