High Court judge criticises Victorian laws
A High Court judge today again severely criticised the legislature over its failure to reform the law in relation to mental health.
Mr Justice Carney was speaking on the third day of the trial of Damien Donnan, who is accused of murdering his mother. It is the third case of its kind in three weeks and one, he suggested, that the present Victorian laws would be "least able to cope with".
In each of the previous two cases, a defence of insanity succeeded, but this particular case does not fit any of the insanity rules which, he said "are frozen in time in the year 1843". There had been neither "intervention or assistance from Leinster House" in the history of the State. Because of this, the defence in Mr Donnan's case are forced to go down the "rather artificial road of provocation," Mr Justice Carney told the jury.
Damien Donnan, aged 20, of De Valera Park, Thomondgate, Limerick, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mrs Jennifer Donnan, 42, at the family home on April 17 2000. The court has heard that the accused had received psychiatric care and had been prescribed anti-depressants.
Defence witness Antoinette Riley, the deceased's sister, told the jury that the accused was "a lovely boy, very gentle" but he had been badly affected by the break up of his parent's marriage.
Questioned by defence counsel Patrick Gageby SC, about her nephew's relationship with his father, Mr Daniel Donnan, she replied: "Damien intensely disliked his father." When asked why, she replied "he was very brutish with his mother."
This was a "very, very dirty marriage," Mrs Riley alleged. Her sister was not an alcoholic, "she was a very hurt person". The accused and his two younger brothers were exposed to the conflict between his parents, which had been going on for years, she told the court.
Mr Daniel Donnan had been having an affair for 8 years before his wife's death but had lied about it for five, the witness alleged. Asked if the accused was affected by his father having a daughter outside the marriage, she replied: "It effected him very badly I have to say."
Mrs Riley told the court that after the marriage break up, her nephew felt like a substitute father and husband to his mother, whom he loved. "Damien has been a victim of circumstance for far too long," she said. "He's just been mistreated for most of his life."
The witness told the jury that the accused "was like a pressure cooker waiting to go off" and it happened that night. Asked by the defence if the accused understood he had killed his mother she said: "Yes." Mrs Riley told the defence that her nephew had shown remorse for the killing.
Mr Gageby asked the witness if the deceased's family hold the accused responsible for the death of Jennifer Donnan. "The family do not hold him personally responsible. Not at all," she replied.
n his closing submission, prosecution counsel Patrick McCarthy SC said this was not a case of self-defence or provocation. The accused's statement in which he admitted that he realised what he was doing was "wholly inconsistent" with lack of self-control. He told the jury that as such, manslaughter by reason of provocation was not open to them.
Summing up for the defence, Mr Gageby told the jury they must consider the background to this case and the dysfunctional aspects within the family. "You have to look into the mind of Damien Donnan and the surrounding circumstances," he submitted. He said they must also look at the state of mind of the accused and the fact that he had become increasingly unstable.
The accused was, he submitted "a very disturbed young man" and it might have been better had he been committed to a psychiatric hospital.
However, the defence of insanity was not available because the facts of the case don't fit. "It is a depressing fact that we don't have statute law to assist us in that regard." He asked the jury to acquit on the murder charge and to consider manslaughter.
The trial continues tomorrow with the judge's charge to the jury.
