Airport rampage jury begins deliberating

The jury in the case against a man accused of going on a rampage where he drove a rescue 4x4 at two planes full of passengers deliberated for two hours yesterday and will resume today.

Edmond Stapleton, aged 38, of no fixed abode and originally from Dublin Hill, Blackpool, Cork, is on trial on 12 charges, including hijacking of two 4x4s, criminal damage, assault causing harm to Garda Michael Bohane, and dangerous driving on May 22, 2011.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin told the jury three options were open to them: Guilty, not guilty, or not guilty by reason of insanity.

Pearse Sreenan, prosecuting, said: “I have to suggest to you that Mr Stapleton — having ingested drugs — became disinhibited, he lost the normal social restraints, and acted out his fantasy.”

There was evidence in the case of Mr Stapleton expressing a fantasy about two years earlier and noted in a clinical report, of going on a rampage with swords to injure strangers.

Mr Sreenan challenged the evidence of the psychiatrist called by the defence, Dr Paul O’Connell. Mr Sreenan asked: “How reliable is the evidence of Dr O’Connell when he said he relies on what Edmond Stapleton told him, and Edmond Stapleton — we know — told untruths?”

Patrick McGrath, defending, challenged the evidence called by the prosecution from the psychiatrist Dr Damian Mohan. “Whether Dr Mohan likes it or not, chronic drug users or alcoholics, whether we like it or not, can be legally insane,” said Mr McGrath.

“There is no doubt he has a considerable and long history of drug use but a drug user is not excluded from the defence of insanity... The only reliable evidence is that there was cannabis in his system. To approach it on any other basis would be speculative and unfair.”

The judge referred to Dr O’Connell’s evidence that the accused had a bipolar disorder, saying if the jury was satisfied about that, they also had to be satisfied on at least one out of three other factors before finding Mr Stapleton not guilty by reason of insanity. Those factors are that he did not know the nature of what he was doing, did not know it was wrong, or was unable to refrain from doing it.

The judge said simply having taken some drugs before May 22, 2011, if Mr Stapleton had done so, did not put the accused outside the category of being not guilty by reason of insanity.

Judge Ó Donnabháin said that if the jury believed that the defendant did not have a background mental disorder and was propelled into the alleged behaviour by drink or drugs, then they could not find him not guilty by reason of insanity.

During the trial, Mr Stapleton told the psychiatrist and gardaí 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, ramming through a perimeter fence at Cork Airport, hijacking a rescue 4x4, and driving at two planes full of passengers and fuel.