A 19-YEAR-OLD woman whose badly burned body was discovered in her flat four years ago had a death wish, a psychiatrist has told a murder trial.
Her boyfriend, Mr Paul Toland (22), denies murdering Sharon King in their flat in Duncairn Gardens, north Belfast, in October, 1992, and then setting her body on fire to cover up the crime.
Consultant psychiatrist Dr Stephen Humphries, who treated Ms King in England after a series of alleged suicide bids, described her as suffering from a borderline personality disorder and being "preoccupied with the idea of death and dying".
Giving evidence in Belfast Crown Court yesterday, Dr Humphries, who treated her at Newcastle General, said at times Ms King did not care whether she lived or died and that he felt "extremely pessimistic" about her future and if "she would survive into old age". He said she had told him of occasions when she had tried to kill herself and had threatened to throw herself from a window with a plastic bag over her head.
Dr Humphries said her self-destructive tendencies were due to extensive childhood trauma which were brought about by her mother's alleged suicide and a history of alleged sexual abuse.
Ms King also told him she had visions of her dead mother and also heard a man's voice inside her head, but he did not feel she was suffering from any real form of mental illness.
He said he felt Ms King's alleged attempt to kill herself by setting fire to her flat in Newcastle in March, 1991, was an act of destruction and not of suicide. A sergeant who rescued her from the smoke-filled flat said she had set fire to a quilt and later claimed she had done so out of boredom and had wanted the blaze to kill her.
The sergeant also said Ms King tried to harm herself while being questioned in the police station. He said she cut at her wrists and claimed she had swallowed glass. She was eventually given an absolute discharge for causing criminal damage to the flat.
A senior probation officer from Newcastle, who also came into contact with Ms King, said about a week after the flat fire, she had taken an overdose of tablets. She told him her mother had committed suicide and claimed that while living with her father he had sexually abused her.
He too described Ms King as having self-destructive tendencies and he considered her to be very vulnerable.
He said within months of coming to Newcastle, she was twice admitted to hospital after alleged suicide attempts and she was removed from a Salvation Army hostel after threatening to burn it downs The trial has been adjourned until Monday when the jury will hear final submissions before retiring to consider its verdict.