There are only two verdicts available in the trial of a man accused of the “brutal” machete murder of his neighbour, a Central Criminal Court jury has been told.
Mr Justice Michael MacGrath told the nine men and three women that they can find the accused, Patrick McDonagh, guilty of murder or not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. Their decision must be unanimous, he said. The jury has spent about three hours considering their verdict today (THU) and will return on Monday to resume their deliberations. The court will not sit on Friday as one juror is not available.
Patrick McDonagh (52), with an address at Whitechapel Road, Clonsilla, Dublin 15, is charged with murdering his next-door neighbour Peter McDonald (73) on Whitechapel Road on July 25th, 2020. He has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. The State has not accepted his plea.
In his charge to the jury, Mr Justice MacGrath said that if they are satisfied that the prosecution had proved all the elements of murder, they must then consider the defence of diminished responsibility due to a mental disorder.
He said diminished responsibility is a defence under the Criminal Law (Insanity) Act 2006 and if established, it reduces a murder conviction to one of manslaughter. The defence, he said, bears the burden of proving that it is probable that Mr McDonagh had a mental disorder and that it was such as to substantially reduce his responsibility for the act of killing.
The jury heard from two consultant psychiatrists who differed on Mr McDonagh’s diagnosis. Professor Patricia Casey, who was called by the defence, said that Mr McDonagh was suffering acute symptoms of schizophrenia at the time and his responsibility for the killing was therefore substantially diminished.
Dr Mary Davoren, who was called by the prosecution, said that if there was any abnormality in Mr McDonagh’s mental state at the time of the alleged offence, it would most likely be accounted for by cannabis use.
The evidence of those expert witnesses, the judge said, is to assist the jury in coming to their verdict. “The question as to whether his responsibility is diminished is a question for you, and you alone. This is not trial by experts, it is trial by jury,” he said.
In his closing speech to the jury on Tuesday, Philipp Rahn SC for the prosecution, said the evidence shows that Mr McDonagh killed Mr McDonald in a “violent, sustained and merciless attack ... leaving him no chance.”
He described the killing as “horrific” and “brutal” and said the defence had not established that at the time of the attack Mr McDonagh was operating under a mental disorder. “He is not only responsible for killing Mr McDonald but for his murder and a true verdict on the evidence is one of murder,” he said.
John Fitzgerald SC, defending, said his client has a lengthy psychiatric history with multiple diagnoses of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.
For 20 years, Mr Fitzgerald said, his client was prescribed antipsychotic medication. “Medication is not a diagnosis,” he said, “but you would like to think a person is not going to be prescribed medication for 20 years if there wasn’t at least some diagnosis.”
There was further evidence, counsel said, that Mr McDonagh’s condition deteriorated further in the lead-up to the killing and in the hours leading up to the attack he appeared to be “raging against the world”.
“He was drawing attention to himself all night in front of his neighbours, roaring and shouting, blessing himself, banging a machete off the wall ... None of this is consistent with any kind of planned killing or clever tactical thinking or anything like that.”
Counsel said that the suggestion had been made that Mr McDonagh was a “malingerer or a liar” but he asked the jury to consider how that sits with a mental health history going back to 1999. “If he’s been lying or malingering all those years, it’s a hell of a performance,” he said.
He described the killing as irrational and “very far from being a planned, cleverly executed killing”.
The trial continues.
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