Insanity issue brought up in Dublin bar murder trial

The trial of a 34-year-old man accused of the murder of another man in a Dublin bar has heard the issue of insanity arises in the trial at the Central Criminal Court.

Prosecuting barrister Mr Edward Comyn SC in his opening speech to the jury that the issue of insanity "arises in this case". "It was lodged in the accused man’s mind, obsessively lodged, that the man had attacked him on a pervious occasion had raped him," the prosecutor said.

Mr Aidan Heneghan of Brosna Lawn, Mullingar, Co Westmeath, denies the murder of Frank McCann (aged 43) on March 2, 2004, in the Front Lounge bar on Parliament Street, Dublin 2.

After 11.15pm on the night of the fatal attack, Heneghan came into the Front Lounge, the prosecutor said.

There was karaoke going on and there "was no reason to believe anything extrordinary was going to happen", Mr Comyn said. Heneghan, the court heard, approached Mr McCann and "put his arm around his head and with his knife he cut Frank McCann’s throat from one side to another".

"As you can imagine", Mr Comyn told the jury, "considerable panic broke out". People were screaming and were horrified, Mr Comyn said.

The State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, came to the conclusion in her post mortem, the prosecutor said, that the deceased man died as a result of a haemorrhage caused by the severing of the jugular vein and carotid artery.