A 43 year-old Dublin man who killed his father and mutilated him during a severe psychotic episode was found guilty but insane by a unanimous jury verdict at the Central Criminal Court yesterday.
It took less than 20 minutes for the jury to return the verdict in the trial of Anthony McAuliffe after hearing evidence described by Mr Justice Butler as "one way" in favour of a verdict of insanity.
McAuliffe, Rosevale Court, Brookwood Glen, Artane, Dublin was found guilty but insane of the murder of his father John Tony McAuliffe at Rosevale Court between October 27th and October 30th, 2001.
During the trial, the court heard evidence that McAuliffe, who had a long history of severe mental illness, believed he was instructed by God to kill his father. Consultant psychiatrists representing both the State and the defence concurred that McAuliffe was legally insane when he killed his father, injuring him fatally with a knife in the small one-bedroomed flat where the dead man lived.
The court heard that McAuliffe told gardaí he strangled his father and cut him open because he was "in a rage" after prolonged feelings of depression, tension and anxiety "built up inside of him".
Yet evidence given by the State Pathologist, Prof John Harbison, showed that the elderly man was not strangled, but died from knife wounds to his neck and shoulder, which severed the jugular vein. He had also been mutilated with a knife following his death.
"Some mental derangement must have occurred," agreed Prof Harbison in cross-examination by Mr Patrick MacEntee SC for the defence.
McAuliffe will be detained at the Central Mental Hospital "at the pleasure of the Government".