A woman on trial for the attempted murder of her daughter wept in court on Friday after a consultant psychiatrist told the court that, in his opinion, insanity could not be used as a defence in the case.<\/p>\n
The woman, who cannot be named, has denied the attempted murder of the girl (8) at a temporary accommodation centre on September 22nd, 2022.<\/p>\n
The girl sustained more than 70 stab wounds to her chest, back, arms and legs. <\/p>\n
On Friday, prosecution witness Dr Richard Church, a UK forensic psychiatrist, gave evidence that after interviewing the accused and considering other expert opinions, as well as the accused\u2019s past psychiatric medical history, he was of the view that \u201cinsanity\u201d could not be used as a defence in the case.<\/p>\n
Dr Church differed from the view of forensic psychiatrist Dr Paul O\u2019Connell\u2019s view that the accused did not know what she was doing was wrong.<\/p>\n
Dr Church said he took \u201cgreat care\u201d in considering the \u201cinsanity\u201d defence but, he said, he was \u201cnot satisfied\u201d the accused did not know what she was doing was wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, I am not satisfied that defence of insanity is [applicable] in this case,\u201d he told the court.<\/p>\n
The accused cried in court, prompting a short recess in the trial.<\/p>\n
Continuing his evidence after proceedings resumed, Dr Church said in his view, the evidence of the accused\u2019s behaviour on the morning of the attack \u2013 including that she had allegedly concealed the knife used in the attack and locked the door to the room where the alleged attack occurred \u2013 \u201care behaviours indicating that she knew that what she was about to do was wrong\u201d.<\/p>\n
The court heard the accused had previously accessed psychiatric hospital services in her native Russia where she was diagnosed with \u201cbipolar active disorder\u201d.<\/p>\n
In March 2022, six months prior to the attack on the girl, the accused and her daughter fled the war in Ukraine to Ireland. They stayed in temporary accommodation premises.<\/p>\n
Dr Church said his view was that, at the time of the attack on the girl, the accused was suffering with an \u201cadjustment disorder in addition to a personality disorder\u201d, which \u201cmanifested in a severe response to her circumstances\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said he believed the accused was suffering from a number of stresses in her life at the time, that she had poor coping skills and suffered emotional outbursts.<\/p>\n
Dr Church said he asked the accused during interview, in October, 2025, if she had had any flashbacks or intrusive memories of the attack on her daughter. He said the accused clenched her fists and replied: \u201cI\u2019m thinking constantly about her, I don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The trial has heard the girl would have died had it not been for intervention of doctors. The girl was later transferred to Children\u2019s Health Ireland at Crumlin, where she underwent emergency open-heart surgery to repair a large stab wound in her chest.<\/p>\n
Following her arrest, the accused told garda\u00ed she stabbed the girl multiple times with a kitchen knife and had tried to strangle her.<\/p>\n
She said she had been having suicidal thoughts and was \u201cout of my mind\u201d at the time.<\/p>\n
The accused said she had become paranoid that others thought she was a poor mother and that Tusla, the child and family agency, would come and take her daughter from her.<\/p>\n
The accused\u2019s barrister, senior counsel Mark Nicholas, argued that, if the jury accepted Dr O\u2019Connell\u2019s view \u2013 that the accused had not been aware what she was doing was wrong \u2013 they could consider the accused was not guilty by reason of insanity.<\/p>\n
The trial continues next Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman on trial for the attempted murder of her daughter wept in court on Friday after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10863,61,60,43,10864],"class_list":{"0":"post-248680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-bestof","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-topix"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}