A MAN who broke into his next door neighbour’s house at about 6am and stabbed him after alleging his family had stolen €3,500 from him is pleading insanity at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Mark Larkin also confronted a mother and her children who she said “were screaming with terror” when he forced his way into her bedroom wielding a knife and demanding his “stuff”.
Larkin had broken into the house after throwing a garden bench through the window and also stabbed three other people who came to help the stricken family after her son raised the alarm.
Garda Feargal O’Grady said Larkin replied “I am guilty on all of them” when charged with the stabbings and appeared to be unaware of €3,500 cash found in his possession at the time.
“He said the €3,500 was his life savings,” Garda O’Grady told Cormac Quinn, prosecuting.
Larkin of Ashlawn Park, Ballybrack, who now resides in the Central Mental Hospital, has pleaded “not guilty by reason of insanity” to intentionally or recklessly causing serious harm to Keith Kelly at his home on January 18, 2008.
He has also pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to assault causing harm to Julie, Peter and Wayne Kelly and to production of a knife on the same date and in the same place.
Mr Quinn told the jury there was “no disagreement” between the prosecution and the defence on the facts of the case and that doctors for both sides were agreed Larkin had a mental problem at the time he committed the offences.
Mr Quinn said, however, that the jury had to decide after hearing all the evidence if Larkin was insane within the meaning of the legislation at the time.
Keith Kelly told Mr Quinn his lung was punctured as a result of Larkin stabbing him in the chest when he grappled with him on the stairs to stop him getting to his wife and three children. Mr Kelly said he also had to have plastic surgery as a result of being stabbed in the face.
The previous morning (January 17th, 2008), Larkin had also come banging loudly at the house and shouting that he could hear him [Mr Kelly] and his wife through the wall planning to break into his [accused’s] home. Mr Kelly said he called the gardaí.
Mr Kelly told Mr Quinn that later that day, his wife phoned him at work to say Larkin was again outside their house shouting that he wanted his “stuff”.
Mr Kelly said that at about 5.30am the following morning he heard two loud bangs at his house and knew it was Larkin who had rammed a bench through a window to gain entrance. He ran down the stairs and was confronted by Larkin wielding a knife.
Mr Kelly told defence counsel Remy Farrell BL (with Conor Devally SC), that he had asked Larkin’s parents twice to see about getting him treatment.
The trial continues before Judge Desmond Hogan and a jury of six men and six women.