Hospital escapee found teaching in French school

AN Irishman who escaped from a psychiatric hospital where he was interned for knifing a colleague in the neck “without warning” has been found working as a German teacher in a French secondary school.

Lewis Alexander Mawhinney, 26, of Knockburn Drive, Lisburn, Belfast, was only properly identified by authorities almost a month after starting work at the school.

The Irishman was sentenced to an unspecified period in a psychiatric unit by Belfast Crown Court in November 2008 after stabbing Stephen Hayes in a lift in September 2007 during a call centre induction course.

He was originally charged with attempted murder but this was subsequently reduced to a charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

The court heard Mr Mawhinney was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and sentenced him to an unspecified period under psychiatric observation.

However, it emerged last night that the 26-year-old escaped the facility late last year before travelling to Digne-les-Bains in southern Provence, France.

The Irishman then managed to become employed as a German teacher in the town’s secondary school.

Colleagues only became suspicious when the Belfast man started claiming he was a secret agent working undercover for Scotland Yard.

After alerting police, the principal of the high school was informed Mr Mawhinney had been found not guilty but insane in the 2008 case and had recently escaped from the psychiatric facility.

Officials last night confirmed he has been removed from his German language teaching post and interned in a secure psychiatric unit in the French town while his transport back to the North is arranged.

During the November 2008 case, consultant psychiatrist Dr Gerard Loughry said Mr Mawhinney’s medical history meant he could not have appreciated the moral or legal issues of knifing his colleague.

The physician said the then 24-year-old claimed he was recruited by M15 while studying modern languages at Oxford University in Britain, was being followed by special branch and that “his handler” instructed him to stab Mr Hayes.

Dr Loughry added that the Belfast man had been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and had told a doctor in 2006 that his “TV was talking to him and the radio was replicating everything he was saying on the telephone”.

During the 2007 attack, Mr Mawhinney stabbed Mr Hayes in the neck in a lift.

Colleagues who saw the assault unfold were forced to disarm and restrain the man before calling police.

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