A verdict is expected today in the trial of a man accused of murdering a schoolgirl in Co Donegal.
Mr Patrick Michael Granaghan (36), of Drumacrin Road, Bundoran, Co Donegal, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Alison White (13) in the seaside town on April 14th, 1996.
Dr John Harbison, the State Pathologist, said the girl died of very severe head injuries which caused multiple fractures of the skull and were consistent with the dropping of large stones on to her head. He also concluded that she had been sexually assaulted.
In his closing speech to the jury yesterday, Mr Paul O'Higgins SC, prosecuting, said there was no dispute as to the facts of the killing. There was no dispute that what happened was anything other than murder and that Patrick Granaghan was the person who killed Alison White, he said.
There was also no doubt that Mr Granaghan intended to kill. The only thing that separated the two sides in the case was the basis on which that intention arose.
Mr O'Higgins said that where the issue of insanity arose the onus was on the defence to prove that on the balance of probability the accused was insane at the time of the killing.
No one suggested that the accused did not know it was wrong to kill a young girl, and there was nothing to lead to the conclusion that the accused was under "an irresistible impulse" to do what he did.
It was the prosecution's contention that the killing resulted from "the going wrong of a sexual assault", counsel said.
Regarding the testimony of five psychiatrists, Mr O'Higgins suggested that trial by expert might be desirable in such a case as the one before the court, but there was only a certain distance that psychiatrists could go.
The facts showed that Mr Granaghan was not a man out of control, Mr O'Higgins argued.
Mr Patrick Gageby SC, defending, said that in one sense the case boiled down to the testimony of Dr Art O'Connor on the one side and the testimony of four other doctors on the other side.
Last week, four psychiatrists, including the director of the Central Mental Hospital, Dr Charles Smith, told the court they believed the killing of Alison White was driven by delusions brought on by paranoid schizophrenia, the illness Mr Granaghan suffers from. Dr O'Connor said it was his view that the crime was not illness driven.
Mr Gageby told the jury that a verdict of guilty but insane would mean they believed there was a probability that the illness caused the accused to kill Alison White.
Mr Justice Carney told the jury that three verdicts were possible in the case. They could find the accused guilty of murder; guilty but insane; or not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
He said normally a judge did not tell a jury what the consequences of their verdict would be but he wished to reassure them that if they found Mr Granaghan guilty but insane it would not mean that he would be allowed out on the streets.
Mr Justice Carney advised the jury to consider the issue of insanity first in their deliberations. The onus was on the defence to prove insanity, he said. But the jury had to decide this issue on the balance of probabilities, not beyond all reasonable doubt.
The jury were also charged to consider a verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
The judge's review of the evidence continues today after which the jury will retire to consider their verdict.