A Kilkenny man accused of murder had the emotional age of a five-year-old, the Central Criminal Court heard yesterday. The jury in the trial of Mr Sean Bambrick (23) of Cypress Green, Loughboy, Kilkenny, heard he displayed an intellectual intelligence which placed him in the bottom 5 per cent of the population.
Mr Bambrick has denied the murder of Michael O'Sullivan, (44) of no fixed address, who was found dead in the grounds of Mill Hill Holy Missionary Fathers, Waterford Road, Kilkenny. on May 1st last year. Mr Bambrick claimed he killed Mr O'Sullivan because he made a sexual advance which awakened memories of past abuse.
Giving evidence Mr Brian Mc Caffrey, clinical director of psychiatry at the Eastern Health Board, said a person who had suffered sexual abuse could react in a violent and uncontrolled manner if approached again with a sexual advance. Mr McCaffrey adjudged Mr Bambrick's combined history of sexual abuse and family circumstances as "very serious, you could not get worse".
The reactions of a person with a history of child sexual abuse could be totally out of character as the controllability to stop themselves was absent, with an even greater risk of loss of control if alcohol had been consumed.
Such persons were in effect "carrying time bombs which something may trigger", said Mr McCaffrey. Often such individuals had at some time in their lives attempted to tell people of their abuse, but had failed to communicate or were ignored, thus increasing their sense of anger. The length, severity and frequency of the sexual abuse were also important contributory factors.
He referred to the case of a "prominent Irish man" who had been sexually abused as a child by an American relation. Years later at a party, the voice of an American woman had triggered the memory, sending him into a frenzy during which he ripped the woman's clothes off and had to be held down by 12 men.
However, if a person who had been abused as a child came from a loving, caring family, they tended to go through life unharmed by the experience. Some carried on with no scars of their trauma, while others went through life carrying the burden inside until the earlier events were triggered by some stimulus.
The director of psychology with the Eastern Health Board, Mr Brian Glanville, told the court that a person subjected to extreme trauma developed automatic defences which were often initiated without consciousness.
"They don't actually think what they are doing until they see what they have done." It was well recognised within his profession that survivors of trauma could be quite violent people, who tended to react with the "fight" rather than "flight" reaction.
Asked how he assessed Mr Bambrick's combined history of sexual abuse as a child, physical and psychological abuse and abandonment by his mother, Mr Glanville said they were "extremely adverse". An IQ test put him in the lower 5 per cent of the population. The trial continues today.