Murder accused (23) reported hearing voices on same day he found out insanity verdict was possible, court told
Eoin Reynolds
A consultant psychiatrist has told a jury that the first time a murder accused reported hearing voices in his head was over a year after he was remanded in custody, on the same day his awareness of the possibility of a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity was first documented.
Dr Mary Davoren on Wednesday told the Central Criminal Court that she believes anger and resentment could explain why Brian Ibe fatally assaulted 65-year-old Peter Kennedy, who had previously called gardaí to have Mr Ibe removed from his home.
Dr Davoren told prosecution counsel, Paul Carroll SC, that she interviewed the accused man, Mr Ibe (23), while he was on remand awaiting trial for the murder of Mr Kennedy at Mr Kennedy's home in Moore Park, Newbridge, Co Kildare.
She said she disagreed with psychiatrists called by the defence who said Mr Ibe was in a psychotic state at the time of the assault due to schizophrenia and that the jury could consider returning the special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Dr Davoren said Mr Ibe has a dissocial personality disorder, which is not a mental disorder that qualifies for the special verdict.
Dr Davoren said there was no evidence that Mr Ibe was suffering hallucinations or other symptoms of psychosis around the time of the offence, but there was evidence that he was regularly smoking cannabis. She also found that an alternative explanation for the assault on Mr Kennedy was anger and resentment after Mr Kennedy called gardaí to have Mr Ibe removed from his house about five months previously.
On April 28th, 2020, Mr Ibe took a taxi from the Peter McVerry Trust hostel where he was living in Walkinstown in 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 12th.
Mr Ibe, of no fixed abode but formerly of Moore Park in Newbridge, has pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of insanity.
He has entered a similar plea in relation 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 that 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.
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 Peter McVerry Trust 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.
He said he went to the kitchen, where he got a butter knife. His intention, he said, was to hurt someone, and he "knew that someone was Peter because that's who I was thinking about at the time."
He said he recalled having arguments with Mr Kennedy when they lived together but couldn't remember what they 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. 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 the knife he had taken from the hostel was missing, so he used the shard of glass, about 8 inches long, to stab Mr Kennedy three or four times. Mr Kennedy fell to the floor, he said, so Mr Ibe started kicking him on the ground before leaving. He went to a nearby train station, took a train to Heuston Station and walked the rest of the distance back to the hostel.
When Mr Ibe spoke to gardaí 24 hours later, Dr Davoren noted that he did not report any hallucinations, gave coherent answers and 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. He denied knowledge of the assault on Mr Kennedy and suggested that his mother could be lying when she told gardaí that she saw him stabbing Mr Kennedy.
Also, while in garda custody, he refused to give a DNA sample or to allow gardaí to take his fingerprints, became aggressive and punched a garda. Dr Davoren said this was "goal-directed" behaviour rather than "irrational or bizarre behaviour". He didn't want to give samples to gardaí and became agitated and aggressive when told he would have to, the psychiatrist said.
Dr Davoren said there is no psychiatric explanation for his lies to gardai or for inconsistent accounts he gave of his cannabis use in the days and weeks before the assault. She also said there is no psychiatric explanation for his failure to tell her that he was put out of a residential home in his teenage years following multiple acts of aggression and violence towards staff and continually smoking cannabis despite repeated warnings and gardaí being called.
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 that 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 that it was first documented that Mr Ibe was aware of the possibility of a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
In his interviews with other psychiatrists, Mr Ibe reported symptoms which Dr Davoren said he did not report to her and which are not typical of schizophrenia, including that he would see images of his own death playing like a video in his environment. Dr Davoren said she formed the view that Mr Ibe might be an unreliable historian.
Dr Davoren said her view is that Mr Ibe shows clear evidence of having had a childhood conduct disorder that progressed to a dissocial personality disorder. She said this is evidenced by his ongoing rule breaking as an adolescent and his aggressive and threatening behaviour towards others.
She said he meets various criteria for the personality disorder, including a callous unconcern for the feelings of others, gross and persistent irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, low tolerance to frustration and low threshold for aggression and violence. He displays an incapacity to experience guilt or to benefit from punishment and is also prone to blame others or rationalise his behaviour, she said.
Dr Davoren said she does not agree with the diagnosis of schizophrenia, but if the jury finds that Mr Ibe was suffering from a mental disorder, she said that does not automatically mean that he is entitled to the special verdict.
Dr Davoren said the jury must also be satisfied that as a result of a mental disorder, Mr Ibe either did not know the nature and quality of his actions, or did not know his actions were wrong, or was unable to refrain from killing Mr Kennedy.
Dr Davoren said Mr Ibe told her that as he was stabbing Mr Kennedy, he knew it would harm him and, therefore, he did know the nature and quality of his actions. She said he also said that he knew stabbing Mr Kennedy was wrong and at no point did he think it was the right thing to do.
She said he showed his ability to form an intent by engaging in a series of deliberate acts, including taking the butter knife, travelling from Dublin to Kildare by taxi, going to Mr Kennedy's home, banging on the door and then breaking in when there was no answer. Those deliberate acts showed no evidence that Mr Ibe was unable to refrain from the assault, she said.
Dr Davoren also did not agree that Mr Ibe could be found guilty of manslaughter instead of murder due to diminished responsibility. She said there was no evidence that his capacity to form the intent to cause serious harm to Mr Kennedy was significantly impaired.
In disagreeing with diagnosis of schizophrenia, Dr Davoren said an alternative explanation for Mr Ibe's assault on the deceased was anger and resentment after the row that resulted in Mr Kennedy calling gardaí and Mr Ibe being put out of the house and moving to a homeless shelter.
The trial continues on Thursday before Ms Justice Melanie Greally and a jury of six men and six women.
