Jury takes just 29 minutes to find man not guilty of murdering 'soft-hearted' father by reason of insanity

Eoin Reynolds

A man who stabbed his "friendly and soft-hearted" father 18 times during a psychotic episode has been found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity by a jury at the Central Criminal Court.

Ross O'Rourke (31), with a previous address in Tullow, Carlow, had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to murdering his father, Stefan Nivelle Posschier (65), at the deceased's home in Kinnegad, Co Westmeath, between October 24th and 25th, 2022.

The jury of five men and seven women took just 29 minutes on Monday to return their unanimous verdict, having been told that all the evidence points in the same direction.

Following the verdict, Mr Justice Paul McDermott exempted the jury from further service for five years. He described the trial as "extremely difficult, especially for those who have lost a loved one."

The judge expressed sympathy for the deceased's family, who, he said, have "suffered a tremendous loss".

The trial heard that Mr O'Rourke developed a delusion that his father was mixed up with criminals and the IRA and that he posed a threat to his life. He also came to believe that his father had given him coded messages saying he wished to die.

Mr O'Rourke stabbed his father to death and then drove to a hospital, where he went to his grandmother's bedside and told her he had killed her son.

Psychiatrists called by the prosecution and defence agreed that Mr O'Rourke was suffering from a schizophrenic mental disorder at the time of the killing and met the criteria for the special verdict under the Criminal Law (Insanity) Act 2006.

Dr Ronan Mullaney told Michael Bowman SC, defending, that in the two years since Mr O'Rourke has been treated at the Central Mental Hospital, there has been only a partial improvement in his symptoms.

He said it took eight months to get the defendant to a position where staff were satisfied to remove him from the hospital's high security unit.

Dr Mullaney said that Mr O'Rourke had improved enough after 12 months in hospital that he was able to provide some account of what happened when he killed his father.

Dr Mullaney diagnosed Mr O'Rourke with a schizo-affective disorder. He said Mr O'Rourke's acute psychosis at the time of the killing meant he was unable to regulate his emotions or to make a balanced appraisal of the situation. His thinking was impaired by bizarre paranoid delusions that his father was linked to the IRA, posed a threat to his life and had given him a coded message saying he wished to die.

Dr Mullaney concluded that due to his mental disorder, Mr O'Rourke was unable to refrain from killing his father and therefore meets the criteria for the special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Dr Anthony Kearns told Shane Costelloe SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, that Mr O'Rourke's thought processes were "broken up" and he developed a persecutory belief that his life was in danger.

"His sincere belief was that he was using the knife to save his life; that was his delusional belief," said Dr Kearns.

While Dr Kearns felt Mr O'Rourke knew the nature and quality of his actions, he concluded that he did not understand that it was wrong because of this sincere belief. Dr Kearns said the best way forward for Mr O'Rourke is ongoing treatment in hospital.

In his closing speech to the jury, Mr Bowman described the deceased as a man "against whom not a bad word was ever said". Witnesses described Mr Posschier as placid, friendly, soft-hearted and as having a heart of gold, counsel said.

The suggestion from his son that he had become involved in criminality or the IRA "simply wasn't true", Mr Bowman said, and was the "product of a deluded mind".

When Ross O'Rourke had nowhere else to go, having been forcibly detained at the Cloverhill remand prison due to his mental illness, his father showed his "heart of gold" by agreeing to take him in, counsel said.

Five days before he was killed, Mr Posschier told his daughter that Ross was "sick in the head" and in need of help.

Following the killing, Mr Bowman said his client placed weights on the body, believing he was preventing his father from rising from the dead. He then drove to his grandmother's home in Tullow, Co Carlow and later told her that her eldest son was dead at his hand.

Mr Bowman said there may be a concern that it is "very easy to say these things" or that insanity pleas may be considered "the last refuge of a scoundrel" who is trying to "pull the wool over your eyes". However, Mr Bowman reminded the jury that his client had previously been detained in the Netherlands in 2021 after he suffered a "psychotic break" at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam.

Since his arrest in October 2022, Mr O'Rourke has been observed every day by mental health professionals who have made their determinations and diagnosis, Mr Bowman said. Given that the professionals were all in agreement, Mr Bowman said the only appropriate verdict is not guilty by reason of insanity.

Shane Costelloe SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, told the jury that the evidence proves that Mr O'Rourke intended to kill his father when he stabbed him 18 times and severed his jugular vein. The issue, he said, is whether the special verdict is available to him.

Mr Costelloe said the evidence goes "all only one way", given that both psychiatrists agreed that Mr O'Rourke was insane at the time and met the criteria for the special verdict. "I ask you to go in, do your duty and come back with the appropriate verdict," he said.

In his opening speech, Mr Costello said Mr Posschier lived a modest existence and assisted in the care of his elderly mother Ann Kingston.

Mr Costelloe said Mr O'Rourke was travelling outside the country from 2017 onwards, living a "nomadic style of life", doing some work and beginning to exhibit signs that he wasn't quite mentally well.

The trial heard that Mr O'Rourke was committed to a psychiatric hospital in Amsterdam after being forcibly detained by police at Schiphol Airport.

On October 25th, 2022, Mr O'Rourke travelled to his grandmother's hospital bedside, where he told her that he had killed her son. Ms Kingston phoned her daughter, setting in train the sequence of events that led to the discovery of the body under a tarpaulin, held down with bricks.

Gardai also found a blood-stained knife in a ceramic jar on top of a kitchen shelf.