A chronic alcoholic has been jailed for life for the murder of a boxing coach in Cork. It was the first case to come before the Central Criminal Court in which the defence was based on diminished responsibility.
No such defence existed before the introduction of the Criminal Law (Insanity) Act in 2006. Before then, the criminally insane were held fully responsible for their crimes.
The new Act means defendants can be found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity or guilty of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility if they suffer from a mental disorder as defined by the Act.
After six hours of deliberations, the jury unanimously found John Collins guilty of murder and he was given a mandatory life sentence by Mr Justice Kevin O'Higgins.
Collins (51), of Francis Street, Rathealy Road, Fermoy, Co Cork, had pleaded not guilty to murdering John Mahon on February 12th, 2006. He had pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but this plea was not accepted by the State.
Mr Justice O'Higgins backdated the sentence to February 13th, 2006, and adjourned sentence on other counts relating to having a firearm and ammunition, to which Collins pleaded guilty.
During the trial a psychiatrist for the defence, Dr David Dunne, said he believed years of alcohol abuse mentally impaired Collins, although he admitted no structural damage was apparent from a brain scan.
However, a prosecution witness, psychiatrist Dr Helen O'Neill, said the vast amount of alcohol consumed by Collins on the night of the shooting caused him to kill the deceased. There was no evidence to prove Collins suffered from a mental disorder.
The court heard that Collins had been convicted of attacking his former wife with an axe in 1994. He had a history of depression and alcoholism, including one period of hospitalisation in the late 1980s.
After being barred from the family home, he lived in his original hometown of Ennistymon, Co Clare, before returning to Fermoy in December 2005.
In the weeks before the shooting, he spoke about the deceased on a number of occasions. He told one witness he was going to shoot Mr Mahon for having "slapped his son around".
By this he was referring to an occasion 14 years beforehand on which he claimed Mr Mahon had beaten up his son after a boxing match because he had not tried hard enough.
Collins got a single-barrel gun from a relative's house in Corofin, claiming he wanted to use it for hunting.
On the day of the murder, he said he drank a bottle of wine and four cans of cider before leaving his flat. When he went into town he drank 12-plus pints of lager and shorts in a nightclub.
At around midnight, he bumped into Mr Mahon, who was talking to a boxing pupil on a bridge while waiting for a lift from his girlfriend. This pupil, Kevin Dolan, told the court how Collins approached Mr Mahon and told him: "I've come a long way to give you this message." He then proceeded to threaten Mr Mahon. However when he failed to intimidate him, Collins returned to his flat, took some anti-depressants and picked up the gun.
In Garda interviews, Collins claimed he had been going to kill himself. Instead, he appeared outside Mr Mahon's house. Evidence from Deputy State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster suggested the first shot by Collins hit the deceased in the arm before he ran to his sister's house. Collins followed and shot him a further two times - once in the heart and the other from mid- to close range in the head.
Gardaí arrested Collins the following day. He told them he shot Mr Mahon in a "fit of madness" and that he was "pure numb". Some parts of the shooting were "blank" for him, and he was not well when he shot him. He claimed he needed to go to hospital.