A PSYCHIATRIST told the Central Criminal Court yesterday he believed a man accused of the murder and attempted rape of a 13 year old girl was probably not insane at the time of the incident.
Giving evidence on the second day of the trial of the man, who has denied the murder and attempted rape of the girl on April 14th last year, Dr Art O'Connor said he accepted the accused man has schizophrenia and has been suffering from it for some years.
He did not think the offences with which the man is charged were related to his schizophrenia, the witness said.
He said he did not think the illness played any role in the attempted rape. It may or may not have in relation to the killing of the girl, the witness said.
"This was a crime related incident," he said. The man had decided to assault the girl sexually and had then decided to kill her. He had a "big choice", the witness said. In his view the defendant's motive was sexual.
He said the defendant had told him he knew what he was doing at the time the girl was killed, knew it was wrong and when asked could he have stopped himself from doing it, had said: "I suppose so."
The trial has been told by State Pathologist, Dr John Harbison, that the girl died from severe head injuries consistent with being inflicted by heavy stones weighing more than 20lbs each. There was also an attempt to strangle and sexually assault her.
In a statement to gardai, the defendant is alleged to have said he had tried to strangle the girl and had then killed her by throwing stones on her head after an unsuccessful attempt to have sex with her.
In court yesterday, Dr O'Connor told Mr Sean Ryan SC, prosecuting, that in his view the defendant knew what he was doing, knew it was wrong, and could have stopped himself at any point.
He said he was as certain "as a psychiatrist can be" that the alleged offences were unrelated to the schizophrenia.
Cross examined by Mr Patrick. Gageby SC, defending, Dr O'Connor said he had interviewed the defendant last week with a view to giving evidence in court in relation to his mental state. He agreed that was his first formal interview with the defendant.
He said he had also seen a statement made by the defendant to gardai, case notes relating to his time in Dundrum and notes relating to his admissions to St Columba's Psychiatric Hospital in Sligo.
He accepted the defendant might have thought he would kill the girl because she was going to tell her parents about the alleged sexual assault, he said. He agreed the defendant had a fixed idea that if he killed three people this could secure him 36 minutes relief from torture in hell, and had retained this fixed delusion from his time of admission to the Central Mental Hospital in April 1996. He agreed no one was suggesting the defendant had invented these delusions.
He accepted the hospital notes recorded the defendant stating he had experienced since 1994 violent thoughts about raping and killing women and saw these as flashes from God.
Just because he was mentally ill, it did not mean the mental illness was responsible for the killing, Dr O'Connor said. He denied a suggestion his diagnosis had ignored the defendant's ease history.
Dr Charles Smith, clinical director of the CMH, told the court it was his opinion the killing of the girl was illness driven. The defendant's schizophrenia was, in his view, well established at the time of the incident in April 1996.
He said the killing and attempted rape of the girl was a bizarre event driven by illness. The defendant had a substantially reduced capacity to refrain from doing what he did. He agreed factors such as timescale, evidence of planning and decisions and behaviour after the event were relevant to the capacity of the defendant to control his actions.
He disagreed with a suggestion, by Mr Ryan that the schizophrenia was an "underlying" factor in the alleged offences. The illness was not an underlying factor but was the "overriding issue".
He said the defendant did make a decision to have sex with the girl, but this was "a very bizarre decision" which fitted in with his illness. "He was operating on a delusional belief," he said.
Dr Smith said it was missing the point to regard as a rational decision the defendant's treating of a 13 year old child as a sexual object when her parents had given her permission to go for a walk with him. The entire events surrounding the incident were bizarre, he said.
If a person was actively schizophrenic and committed a bizarre crime it was strange to look for any other explanation for that crime, Dr Smith said. It defies logic. The obvious explanation is an illness one.
Evidence in the trial concluded yesterday and closing speeches, will be made today.