A consultant psychiatrist has told a jury the first time a man accused of murder reported hearing voices in his head was more than a year after he was remanded in custody.
Dr Mary Davoren told the Central Criminal Court on Wednesday she believed anger and resentment could explain why Brian Ibe fatally assaulted 65-year-old Peter Kennedy.
Mr Kennedy had previously called gardaí to have Mr Ibe removed from his home in Moore Park, Newbridge, Co Kildare, the court heard.
The psychiatrist told Paul Carroll SC, prosecuting, she interviewed Mr Ibe (23) while he was on remand awaiting trial.
She said she disagreed with psychiatrists called by the defence who said that Mr Ibe was in a psychotic state at the time of the assault due to schizophrenia and that the jury could consider returning the verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Dr Davoren said Mr Ibe had a dissocial personality disorder, which was not a mental disorder that qualified for such a verdict.
She said there was no evidence Mr Ibe was suffering hallucinations or other symptoms of psychosis around the time of the offence, but there was evidence he was regularly smoking cannabis.
She also found an alternative explanation for the assault on Mr Kennedy was anger and resentment after Mr Kennedy called gardaí to have Mr Ibe removed from Mr Kennedy’s house about five months previously.
On April 28th, 2020, Mr Ibe took a taxi from the Peter McVerry Trust hostel where he lived in Walkinstown, Dublin, to Mr Kennedy’s home, broke into the house by smashing a window and assaulted Mr Kennedy, who died from his injuries in hospital two weeks later on May 12, the court heard.
Mr Ibe, of no fixed abode but formerly of Moore Park in Newbridge, has pleaded not guilty to murder of Mr Kennedy by reason of insanity.
He has entered a similar plea to a charge of assault causing harm to Garda Brendan O’Donnell at Newbridge Garda station on or about April 29th, 2020.
The trial previously heard Mr Kennedy took Mr Ibe’s mother, Martha, into his home after learning she was living in her car. For a few months leading up to Christmas 2019, Mr Ibe also lived at Mr Kennedy’s home, but had to leave after he became aggressive and threatened his host, the court heard.
Dr Davoren said that in interviews with her Mr Ibe described the alleged offence, saying that he awoke that day at about 11am at the hostel in Walkinstown where he lived after leaving Mr Kennedy’s home.
He watched a movie and hung around the house until he heard a voice in his head saying “nice jacket, Peter”, which he said was a reference to something he had previously said to Mr Kennedy.
The court heard how he said he recalled having arguments with Mr Kennedy when they lived together but could not remember what these were about. “I just wanted to hurt him,” he said.
When he arrived at Newbridge, he said he banged on the front door of Mr Kennedy’s home, but nobody answered so he went to the back of the house where he found a rock, the court heard. He used the rock to smash a window and climbed through, picking up a shard of glass as he went. He said he went upstairs and found Mr Kennedy on the landing beside Mr Ibe’s mother, Martha.
At some point he noticed that a knife he had taken from the hostel was missing so he used the shard of glass, about eight inches long, to stab Mr Kennedy three or four times, the court heard. Mr Kennedy fell to the floor, he said, so Mr Ibe started kicking him before leaving. He went to a nearby railway station, took a train to Heuston station, Dublin, and walked to the hostel.
When Mr Ibe spoke to gardaí 24 hours later, Dr Davoren noted he did not report any hallucinations, he gave coherent answers and he did not display any disordered thinking.
During those interviews, he lied to gardaí, telling them he had not been to Newbridge the previous day, that he had only met Mr Kennedy once and that he never lived with him, the court heard. He denied knowledge of the assault on Mr Kennedy and suggested his mother could be lying when she told gardaí she saw him stabbing Mr Kennedy, the court also heard.
In Garda custody, he declined to give a DNA sample or to allow gardaí to take his fingerprints, became aggressive and punched a garda, the court heard. Dr Davoren said this was “goal-directed” behaviour rather than “irrational or bizarre behaviour”.
Dr Davoren said there was no psychiatric explanation for his lies to gardaí or for inconsistent accounts he gave of his cannabis use in the days and weeks before the assault.
In the days and weeks following the alleged offence, Dr Davoren said medical staff at Cloverhill Prison noted no overt psychotic symptoms despite multiple reviews of Mr Ibe by GPs, nursing staff, junior doctors and a consultant psychiatrist.
The first time he reported hearing voices, Dr Davoren said, was one year and 13 days after he was remanded to Cloverhill. This was, she said, the same day it was first documented that Mr Ibe was aware of the possibility of a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Dr Davoren said her view was Mr Ibe showed clear evidence of having had a childhood conduct disorder that progressed to a dissocial personality disorder.
Dr Davoren said she did not agree with the diagnosis of schizophrenia, but if the jury found that Mr Ibe was suffering from a mental disorder then she said that did not automatically mean he was entitled to the special verdict.
The trial continues.
