A 50 year-old Kildare man has been found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity by a jury at the Central Criminal Court - the first time in Irish legal history such a verdict has been returned.
The new verdict is a result of legislation which came in in June under the Criminal Law (Insanity) Act 2006 and it replaces the former verdict of "guilty but insane". The jury took just under half-an-hour to reach its verdict.
John Egan, Naas, Co Kildare, had pleaded not guilty to murdering 46-year-old Frances Ralph, a mother-of-three, at a taxi rank in Naas on August 18th last year. Mr Justice Paul Carney directed that he be kept at the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum pending a review of his case. Egan, who suffers from a rare form of motor neurone disease and communicates with the aid of a machine, did not show any sign of emotion as the verdict was read out.
Dr Harry Kennedy, clinical director and consultant psychiatrist at the Central Mental Hospital told the court Egan had been admitted to hospital with mental illness on a number of occasions. He stopped working as a chef in 1985, at the same time as "his behaviour was beginning to give cause for concern". His sister died and he began to drink heavily before his life became marked by a "pattern of increasing disorganisation".
He was first admitted to hospital in 1993 following the death of his father, but his psychiatric condition was puzzling and "gave rise to a number of different diagnoses". Among them were frontal lobe syndrome, schizophrenia, and abnormal personality. He later returned to live in a flat but his behaviour became more troublesome.
He was involved in a number of altercations which brought him to the attention of gardaí, including an altercation with an elderly woman for which he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. No abnormality was found when he was admitted at that time. Later, he claimed it was the woman's fault and appeared not to appreciate that others might not believe his account of the incident. He was released from Mountjoy in August 2004 and was advised not to drink alcohol. Soon afterwards, he began to have difficulty swallowing and started drooling and in July 2005 he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. It was noted at the time that he was "very sensitive" and easily offended.
On the night of August 17th, Francis Ralph had gone out to dinner with her husband to celebrate their friends' wedding anniversary. Her husband, Michael Ralph, told the court that they went to get a taxi after midnight. He said they were teasing their wives because "they were talking so much we had missed a number of taxis". He was holding his wife's hand and they were first in the queue when someone shouted "run".
They moved out onto the road and they were still holding hands. "Frances said to me, 'Michael, I think I've been pinched,' and with that she fell to the ground," he said. "There was blood everywhere. It was like a river. It was terrible." He saw a man with a knife in his right hand and he put it back in his bag before walking away. A number of other people followed him. "I was hysterical because there was no ambulance coming and she was just lying there. Her eyes were like saucers."
The victim was taken to the hospital in Naas in a Garda car, where she was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. Mr Ralph broke down in the witness box as he said: "She was gone. She was gone. She was my best friend." He told prosecuting counsel Brendan Grehan SC, they had never met Egan before. "It came totally out of the blue," he said.
A number of other witnesses told the court that they had seen Egan being removed from the Five Lamps pub earlier on that night after he hit a woman twice on the head.
In interviews with Dr Kennedy, Egan said he couldn't sleep when he returned home and returned to town with a bag and a kitchen knife he had bought in Tesco.
He told him he that he walked by Mrs Ralph, who began to make faces and rude signs at him. "My arm went downwards and landed on her shoulder and sank in," he said. He said that although Mr Egan claimed he wished the incident had never happened, he often smiled in a bland way, and that his replies were frequently lacking in emotional appropriateness. He once said Mrs Ralph "should have walked by like everybody else".