Man who killed friend after hearing voices jailed for life

A man being treated in Northern Ireland’s only secure mental-health unit since stabbing a friend to death in August 2013, was jailed for life on Tuesday.

Mr Justice Burgess, who passed the formal sentence, will rule on Friday what tariff Tomas Hornay (36) must serve of the life term for the murder of Luis Nazario Ximines.

Hornay was convicted by a Dungannon Crown Court jury in January of murdering his workmate, also from East Timor, after attacking him with two kitchen knives in the Woodvale Park house they shared in the Co Tyrone town. He said he heard voices telling him to do so.

While awaiting trial Hornay was transferred from prison to the Shannon Clinic in south Belfast, a secure mental-health facility.

In submissions on the proposed tariff, the prosecution argued that the starting point should be one of 12 years, while the defence contended that it should be reduced to not more than nine years.

Prosecution QC Jackie Orr said that while it was accepted that Hornay was being treated for a “mental impairment”, it was not accepted that he was suffering from a substantial or severe mental abnormality at the time, thereby diminishing his responsibility.

Defence QC Greg Berry said while they accept Hornay had armed himself with two knives, the attack was more spontaneous than premeditated.

Mr Berry told the Dungannon court, sitting in Belfast’s Laganside, that the court did not know how close the jury came in accepting the defence of diminished responsibility, as opposed to a loss of control.

During the trial, the court heard evidence that Hornay told doctors he heard “several voices” telling him to kill his friend after the victim insulted his wife.

It was alleged Mr Ximines made sexually derogatory comments about Hornay’s wife, which played on his mind, and that in the month leading up to the fatal attack he was unable to sleep and “spent all night thinking” about Mr Ximines.

Consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Adrian East, who leads the Shannon Clinic, told the court that Hornay described being distressed and angered by the insults.

On the day of the killing, Hornay told doctors he was getting ready to go to work at Moy Park but became “increasingly angry and began formulating a plan to harm the deceased” because “he couldn’t take it any more”.

The court heard Mr Ximines was asleep in the house when Hornay armed himself with two kitchen knives, mixed chilli seeds in some water and threw the mixture into his victim’s face, before stabbing him.