Mother was not insane at time she allegedly attacked daughter with knife, psychiatrist tells trial

David Raleigh

A woman, who is on trial for allegedly attempting to murder her daughter, wept in court on Friday, after a consultant psychiatrist told the court that, in his opinion, insanity could not be used as a defence in the case.

The woman, who cannot be named, has denied the attempted murder of the girl (8) at a temporary accommodation centre, Co Clare, on September 22nd, 2022.

The girl sustained more than 70 stab wounds to her chest, back, arms and legs; however, she survived after gardai and paramedics raced to the scene and kept her from bleeding out, the court previously heard.

On Friday, prosecution witness, Dr Richard Church, a UK forensic psychiatrist, gave evidence that after interviewing the accused and considering other expert opinions as well as the accused’s past psychiatric medical history, he was of the view that “insanity” could not be used by the accused as a defence in the case.

Dr Church said that, while he agreed with forensic psychiatrist Dr Paul O’Connell, Central Mental Hospital, a witness for the defence, that the accused was aware of what she was doing, he said he differed from Dr O’Connell’s continuing view that the accused did not know that what she was doing was wrong.

Dr Church said he took “great care” in considering the “insanity” defence, but he said he was “not satisfied” the accused did not know what she was doing was wrong.

“Overall, I am not satisfied that the defence of insanity is applicable in this case,” Dr Church told the court.

The accused wet in court, prompting a short recess in the trial.

Continuing his evidence after proceedings resumed, Dr Church said that, in his view, the evidence of the accused’s behavior on the morning of the attack — including that she had allegedly concealed the knife used in the attack and had locked the door to the room where the alleged attack occurred — “are behaviours indicating that she knew that what she was about to do was wrong”.

The court heard the accused had previously accessed psychiatric hospital services in her native Russia, where she was diagnosed with “bipolar active disorder”.

In March 2022, six months prior to the attack on the girl, the accused and her daughter fled the war in Ukraine to Ireland, and they stayed in a number of temporary accommodation premises.

Dr Church said his view was, that at the time of the attack on the girl, the accused was suffering with an “adjustment disorder in addition to a personality disorder”, which “manifested in a severe response to her circumstances”.

He said he believed the accused was suffering from a number of stresses in her life at the time; that she had poor coping skills and suffered emotional outbursts.

Dr Church said that, during his interview with the accused, in October 2025, when he asked her if she had had any flashbacks or intrusive memories of the attack on her daughter, the accused clenched her fists and replied: “I’m thinking constantly about her, I don't know what to do.”

The trial has heard that the girl would have certainly died had it not been for the intervention of doctors at University Hospital Limerick. The girl was later transferred to Crumlin’s Children’s Hospital, where she underwent emergency open-heart surgery to repair a large stab wound in her chest.

Following her arrest, the accused told gardaí she stabbed the girl multiple times with a kitchen knife and had tried to strangle her.

She said that she had been having suicidal thoughts and was “out of my mind” at the time.

The accused said she had become paranoid that others thought she was a poor mother and that Tusla, the child and family agency, would come and take her daughter from her.

She said she had contemplated drowning herself and her daughter in the ocean due to overwhelming intrusive thoughts.

During interviews with gardaí the accused confirmed that a knife they showed her, which had been seized from the scene, was the knife she said she used to stab her daughter.

“I started choking her...I started cutting her with the knife, I don’t know how many times I cut her,” she told gardai.

She said she had also contemplated using a hairdryer in water to try to electrocute herself and her daughter: “Chaos took over my mind.”

The court heard the accused was taken from the scene by ambulance to the hospital for a suspected overdose of prescribed drugs and spent several months in psychiatric services.

The accused’s barrister, senior counsel, Mark Nicholas, argued that, if the jury accepted Dr O’Connell’s view that the accused had not been aware that what she was doing was wrong, they could consider that the accused was not guilty by reason of insanity.

The trial continues next Tuesday.