Accused released from hospital ‘against doctors’ wishes’

A man who stabbed his mother 10 times with a kitchen knife was released earlier from a mental hospital against the wishes of the medical team that was treating him for paranoia and psychosis, a court has heard.

Dr Tom Fahy, consultant psychiatrist, told the Central Criminal Court sitting in Castlebar that the discharge of Paul Henry, now aged 28, was decided on by a Mental Health Tribunal when he began to show improvement after he had been detained in hospital for three weeks.

Dr Fahy said after his release, Mr Henry, who is accused of killing his mother Ann Henry, aged 47, at 3 The Spinney, Abbeytown, Roscommon, stopped taking his anti-psychosis tablets and fell very rapidly out of the control of the team.

They had tried to follow up on the patient but could not make contact.

He said Mrs Henry had been killed on September 17, 2011, in a “catastrophic overreaction” to the fact that she was moving to Athlone and there would be a need for her son to find new accommodation.

Dr Fahy said the accused had launched what he described as a ‘multi-faceted attack’ on Mrs Henry using a knife, feet, fists and a broomstick handle. Mrs Henry was dead by the time she reached hospital.

Mr Henry suffered extreme paranoia and psychotic delusions in the months leading up to the killing, the court heard yesterday.

The accused imagined, for instance, there was a plot to kill him by placing a bomb in a domestic clock and that his mother had conspired to putting a cow on the road so that he would crash into it.

The jury was told Mrs Henry’s estranged husband, Phelim Snr, had pleaded with her to get a barring order out against Paul Henry but she had refused.

Dr Brenda Wright, consultant psychiatrist at the Central Mental Hospital, Dublin, where Mr Henry has been detained since his arrest, said she was satisfied he was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the event. He believed that his life was imperilled and morally justified his actions. He believed that if he did not kill his mother, he would be killed himself.

The State has concluded its evidence in the case. The jury is expected to retire to make its decision today.