A father of four who beat his 12-year-old son to death with a lump hammer has been found guilty but insane by a jury at Central Criminal Court in Dublin.
The four man and eight woman jury took just 14 minutes to return a verdict of guilty but insane for John Carroll, who killed his son Andrew in April last year.
Carroll, of Bayview Rise, Killiney, Co Dublin, hit his son between six and eight times with the lump hammer while his wife Trudy and three other children were out of the house.
Hugh Hartnett, senior counsel for the defence, told the court that the accused had been driven to kill his son by a disease of the mind. "His mind was like a narrow corridor in which he had very, very little opportunity to think about other alternatives - his mind was deranged," he said.
The court heard how Carroll had become increasingly obsessed with the belief he was developing Huntingdon's Disease and he was heavily in debt to the Revenue Commissioners.
But a psychiatrist for the defence and prosecution said neither these delusions were true and that his ability to reason had been affected.
Carroll believed he was going to be made homeless and he was killing his son to save him from poverty and unhappiness, the court heard.
Dr Henry Kennedy, clinical director of the Central Medical Hospital said Carroll was suffering from a major depressive disorder at the time he carried out the killing.
"The delusion that he was going to made homeless and impoverished and left by the side of the road took hold of him. The consequence of this was that he became preoccupied with scenes of killing as a solution to his problems.
"His ability to differentiate between right and wrong would be restricted in a grotesque way by these delusional beliefs," he said.
Dr Paul O'Connell, a psychiatrist with the Central Mental Hospital who was called by the prosecution concurred with his colleague's view. "In my opinion he knew that the action he was doing involved killing but he had formed the view that this was a necessary and indeed loving thing to do," he said.
The court heard that in the month leading up to his son's murder, Carroll ran an increasing number of searches on Google with search terms such as 'murder of children by fathers', 'hammer used to kill children' and 'murder, suicide and tax'.
Patrick Gageby, for the prosecution, told the jury the state pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy had performed the post-mortem examination on the boy.
He said she had found that he had died from blunt force trauma to the head and a cut-throat injury, and that Andrew had been struck between six to eight times.
Carroll immediately admitted the killing and was removed from prison to the Central Mental Hospital soon afterwards due to his bizarre behaviour.
Today the judge, Mr Justice Paul Carney, directed that Carroll should be detained at the Central Mental Hospital.
PA