Stephen Silver’s responsibility for shooting Det Colm Horkan not diminished, psychiatrist says

Murder accused Stephen Silver has shown a “pattern of self-dramatizing behaviour” to bring about confrontations and negotiations with gardaí, a consultant psychiatrist has told the Central Criminal Court.

Prof Harry Kennedy told Mr Silver’s trial for the murder of Det Garda Colm Horkan that in previous encounters with the force during his history of involuntary admissions to psychiatric units Mr Silver displayed behaviours that are not features of typical bipolar disorder.

“They are angry and confrontational and dramatic. What happens in the course of mental illness is that ordinary personality features are exaggerated... that’s a product not of illness but of underlying personality,” he said.

Prof Kennedy disagrees with the assessment of Dr Brenda Wright, who told the trial that Mr Silver’s responsibility for the shooting was diminished due to a relapse of bipolar disorder.

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He said that a report on one previous encounter in September 2006 noted that gardaí went to Mr Silver’s apartment and he emerged from his bedroom with a long sword and dressed in a black helmet and leather gear. Mr Silver put away the sword, lay down and allowed gardai to handcuff him after a period and later had tea with them at the garda station.

‘Mastery of the situation’

Prof Kennedy said this was an example of seriously threatening behaviour with a “high probability of causing harm” which showed that Mr Silver was familiar with enacting personal dramas involving confrontation with gardaí. He asserted his control and “mastery of the situation” and then became compliant to bring an end to the confrontation, the professor said.

He pointed to other incidents which he said “illustrate a pattern of self-dramatising behaviour” in which Mr Silver would control a dramatic interaction with gardaí. He said such behaviour is not a feature of bipolar disorder.

Mr Silver (46), from Aughavard, Foxford, Co Mayo, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Det Garda Horkan knowing or being reckless as to whether he was a member of An Garda Síochána acting in accordance with his duty. He has pleaded guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility, at Castlerea, Co Roscommon on June 17th, 2020.

Prof Kennedy told prosecution counsel Michael Delaney SC that in Mr Silver’s account of the encounter with Det Garda Horkan, he described a series of “purposeful actions”. These included taking control of the gun, pulling the trigger, standing back, supporting the gun with both hands, pointing and aiming, and choosing to fire at the detective’s trunk. He did not throw the gun away but fired repeatedly. The professor said the capacity to form intent can be inferred from purposeful actions, where a person does “one thing after another after another”.

In his garda interviews, Mr Silver showed “strength of will”, resisted attempts by gardaí to build rapport and showed himself to be “not at all suggestible”, Prof Kennedy said. At one point Mr Silver feigned sleep for several minutes while gardaí asked him questions, the professor said, showing an “intact ability to act reflectively and not impulsively and having regard to his own best interest as he sees it”.

He said that “fleeting” ideas Mr Silver had the day prior to the shooting about a woman he was seeing being a member of MI6 were not fixed false beliefs and therefore not delusions.

Relapse

He disagreed with Dr Wright’s view that Mr Silver’s decision to give away a motorbike to an old acquaintance earlier on the day of the shooting was evidence of his mental illness relapse.

Prof Kennedy said the accused told gardaí that he gave the bike away because he had too many and was thinking about getting rid of some. The professor said this was a reasonable and rational explanation for why he did what he did.

Mr Delaney had earlier finished his cross-examination of Dr Wright, in which he put to her various opinions advanced by Prof Kennedy. She said she disagreed with Prof Kennedy when he said that Mr Silver was engaging in “hostile repartee” when he became aggressive during interview and told gardaí that he was a captain in the 62nd Cavalry.

“The suggestion of hostile repartee should be considered, but what is evident is the level of hostility and the types of behaviour in those interviews which is not adequately explained by hostility, it is in my view suggestive of mental illness,” she said.

Mr Delaney said that at one point in the interviews Insp Brian Hanley began putting evidence to Mr Silver while he was singing, speaking in Irish, making hostile jokes at the expense of the detectives and looking out the window. Mr Delaney said the professor’s view was that this was not evidence of mania or psychosis but “a defensive effort to avoid the evidence being put to him”.

Dr Wright said that Mr Silver’s behaviour was “so bizarre and unusual that it is more in keeping with a mental illness”. She said it would have been more appropriate for Mr Silver to reply, “no comment”, if he did not want to engage. She said that the level of hostility he showed was unusual and could not be “adequately explained simply by hostility towards gardaí”.

Prison records

Mr Silver’s records, she said, showed that when he became well following treatment after his 17 admissions to psychiatric units and after he had been treated at the Central Mental Hosptial in 2020, he was described as “easy to deal with”. His records from Mountjoy Prison did not show him to be erratic, aggressive or hostile.

There was an account of an attempted assault on Mr Silver by a fellow prisoner which the accused “managed in a calm and appropriate way,” Dr Wright said. She said this was how she concluded that Mr Silver’s behaviour with gardaí was not his normal behaviour.

Dr Wright said that Mr Silver’s previous episodes of aggression towards gardaí were in the context of relapses of his illness and admission to psychiatric hospitals.

“Mr Silver’s behaviour at the interviews is so out of keeping with the gravity of the situation and the context of the garda interviews that it is not sufficiently explained by the term, learned impunity. His behaviour is inappropriate to a degree that is more in keeping with a relapse of his illness.”

The trial continues in front of Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of seven men and five women.