Drug use caused rampage, says doctor

Drug use caused a man to go on a rampage where he drove a rescue 4x4 at two planes full of passengers at Cork Airport, a psychiatrist claimed at his trial yesterday.

Dr Damian Mohan’s psychiatric report was described by Patrick McGrath, defending, as representing an emphatically different conclusion from that reached by Dr Paul O’Connell, psychiatrist called on behalf of the defendant, Edmond Stapleton, last week.

Mr Stapleton, aged 38, of no fixed abode and originally from Dublin Hill, Blackpool, Cork, is on trial on 12 counts on the indictment, including hijacking of two 4x4s, criminal damage, assault causing harm to Garda Michael Bohane, and dangerous driving.

Mr McGrath said Dr Mohan was in the minority in attributing the actions of Mr Stapleton on May 22, 2011, to drugs, where a conclusion that the defendant had a psychotic episode resulting from bipolar affective disorder was found by Dr O’Connell and all of the doctors who treated him for seven months after the incident at the Central Mental Hospital.

Mr McGrath said: “Four out of five doctors see him as having a mental disorder, you just say he does not?”

Dr Mohan replied: “I am certain this all happened because of drugs. This would not have happened if he was not intoxicated.

“His main problem is a long history of drug use. If you take drugs, it takes the lid off, it takes away control.”

He said that this was important in the context of a previously recorded fantasy expressed by Mr Stapleton and noted in a clinical report, where the defendant said he had a fantasy of going on a rampage with swords to injure strangers.

“What we are seeing here is typical of someone in and out of serious drugs use, in and out of cocaine use, cannabis use all the time.

“A history of self-harm is not unusual when one is taking drugs. Self-harm is a symptom of drug-taking. His main problem was that he was using cannabis and other drugs.”

Dr Mohan said there were examples of purposeful activity by the defendant on the day of what was described as a rampage. The psychiatrist said Stapleton told him he went to the airport because he felt that it was an open area where he would be safest. “His decision-making was not totally impaired.”

On the question of why the defendant stripped to his boxer shorts at Cork Airport that afternoon, he said there was a purpose in this, namely to show gardaí he was not armed.

Last week, Dr O’Connell concluded that in his opinion, Mr Stapleton, as a result of mental illness at the time, did not know that what he was doing was wrong and he could not see any alternative behaviour as an option.

Mr Stapleton told the psychiatrist and gardaí that he had planned to make a political protest on 96FM but called to its offices and could not get in so he resorted to the behaviour described by gardaí and witnesses during his trial — hijacking a garda vehicle, ramming through a perimeter fence at Cork Airport, hijacking a rescue 4x4, and driving at two airplanes full of passengers and fuel.

The defence is that he was insane at the time.