It took the Central Criminal Court jury just 21 minutes to
decide that Dr Lynn Gibbs was not guilty by
reason of insanity for the murder of her 16-year-old daughter
Ciara at Killure, Co Kilkenny, on November 25th, 2006.
It is only the second occasion on which such a verdict has been
reached under the 2006 Criminal
Law (Insanity) Act. Dr Gibbs will be held in the Central
Mental Hospital until an order is obtained under the Act for her
release.
There was no reaction, no sense of surprise or achievement in the court. Seated between two psychiatric nurses, Dr Gibbs, who had remained impassive during the trial moving an elastic band back and forth between her fingers, smiled at friends and family who approached.
"It's all over now," she said. To a friend who had spent some time on the witness stand, she offered reassurance: "You did very well."
To Gerard, her husband and childhood sweetheart, whose torment throughout the trial was palpable, she offered a wistful smile as he took her head in his hands, and closing his eyes tightly, laid his temple against hers. Then he stepped back to allow others their turn. It crystallised the catastrophic reality for a once solid, middle-class family where, as witnesses put it, "there were never any cross words", and for a mother "who lived for her family", who "had always chosen jobs to suit the family", a mother for whom her lovely, bright daughter "was the apple of her eye", but whom she feared had inherited her illness.
Prosecution counsel Brendan Grehan SC ceded his right to make a closing speech, saying simply the case had been put before them as the law required. Patrick Gageby SC, for the defence, said the "painful and intimate details" had to be aired in court and the engagement of two independent psychiatrists by either side was necessary to show nothing was being swept under the carpet.
Mr Justice Paul Carney told the jury the evidence "all goes one
way . . . that the defendant did not bear
criminal responsibility in respect of these tragic events by
reason of her mental disorder . . . " If they were to decide
anything other than that, he said, "you would be saying in effect
that psychiatry is bunkum, that you have no time for it, that you
don't hold with it".
Outside the court, Supt Aidan Roche said "as far as the Garda
are concerned, this has been a dreadful
family tragedy . . . The verdict has been a correct one and I
can only hope that some day, Lynn will be
well enough to come home".
