Knife attacker ‘will live with mother on release’

A SCHIZOPHRENIC, sentenced to nine years in prison for attempting to murder a teenager who was camping with friends, will be released after three years on condition he lives with his mother.

His mother, Margaret Corbett, told the Central Criminal Court that she hopes she can cope with his release and that her son will take his medication while under her supervision.

Michael Corbett, 28, had six years of his term suspended as he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the attack, which occurred at the Hell Fire Club in the Dublin mountains on June 27, 2016.

Mr Justice Michael White had told the court how Corbett could become delusional again if he stopped taking his medication or returned to alcohol or drugs.

Father-of-one Corbett, of Woodbine Close in Raheny, north Dublin, was living rough at the time of the incident, and befriended three teens around a campfire before the attack. He then went with the 17-yearold victim to collect firewood.

Corbett grabbed him from behind and slashed his throat with a knife three times before the victim pushed him away.

The teenager fell to the ground and Corbett then stabbed him in the chest.

The knife broke, leaving the blade embedded in his chest. Corbett then picked up a log and hit the teenager on top of his head with it. The other two friends then came to intervene. One of them, a young woman, was first on the scene, where Corbett punched her to the face. The third teenager was also assaulted.

Judge White previously praised the young man’s two friends for coming to his aid only to be assaulted themselves. Last month, he imposed a sentence of nine years, with six suspended on specific conditions, and he finalised the term yesterday.