Woman attacked victim with intention of killing her, rather than robbing handbag, doctor tells jury
A woman on trial for attempted murder attacked her victim on the street with the intention of killing her, rather than robbing a handbag, according to a consultant psychiatrist.
Laura Kenna (37), of no fixed abode, is charged with attempting to murder Fionnuala Burke on Lower Drumcondra Road, in Dublin, on January 3, 2017, and assault causing serious harm on the same occasion.
Ms Kenna has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to both counts.
A jury at the Central Criminal Court has heard that the central issue in the case is Ms Kenna’s state of mind at the time of the attack and that there will be a conflict in the opinion of two consultant psychiatrists, for both the prosecution and the defence.
Dr Stephen Monks, a consultant psychiatrist based at the Central Mental Hospital, told the jury today that Ms Kenna was suffering from schizoaffective disorder, a chronic mental illness related to schizophrenia.
Dr Monks told Barry White SC, for the defence, that Ms Kenna became homeless in 2013 and thereafter lived a "chaotic transient existence".
In the months leading up to the alleged attempted murder, he said Ms Kenna perpetrated three violent assaults on homeless service users in Belfast, two of which were attempted eye-gouges.
The jury were told that a few weeks before the alleged attempted murder, Ms Kenna attacked another woman at a LUAS stop.
She told Dr Monks that the victim was supposedly saying things to her "so I stabbed her in the face with a pen”.
At the time of both incidents, Dr Monks said Ms Kenna did not know the nature and quality of her actions and couldn't stop what she was doing.
As such, she was entitled to the special verdict of not guilty by reason insanity.
It was put to Dr Monks that Professor Harry Kennedy, who will be called to give evidence for the prosecution, laid emphasis on the fact Ms Kenna was committing a robbery when she attacked Ms Burke.
In response, Dr Monks said a person could commit a robbery as part of a delusional belief.
They could commit a robbery for personal gain. He said he didn't believe the purpose of her "frenzied and vicious" attack on Ms Burke was a robbery.
It was with the intention of killing Ms Burke in the context of delusions about death, vampires and cannibalism.
Under cross-examination from Anthony Salmon SC, for the prosecution, Dr Monks said he disagreed with Prof Kennedy’s view that Ms Kenna had appropriated a sharp knife for the purpose of a robbery.
In his view, Dr Monks said Ms Kenna had a knife, not for the purpose of robbing a handbag but for the purpose of killing somebody.
Prof Kennedy will give evidence tomorrow before a jury of six men and six women with Ms Justice Tara Burns presiding.
