Mother who knifed man outside her home fails in her appeal
Killer had ‘psychotic’ episode
A MOTHER-of-three who stabbed a man to death outside her home during a psychotic episode has lost an appeal against the length of her eight-year prison sentence.
Christina Anderson, 41, had never met father-of-seven Gareth Kelly, 38, when she attacked him twice, stabbing him five times in total, while he tried to start his car outside her home in Kingswood, Dublin 22 in the early morning of February 25, 2020.
She was initially charged with murder and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. In January last year, more than one month into her trial, the Director of Public Prosecutions accepted a plea of guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility due to a mental disorder.
The State accepted that Anderson
‘Moral culpability’
was experiencing a psychotic episode due to bipolar affective disorder but did not qualify for the full defence of a not guilty by reason of insanity verdict.
The State also accepted that cannabis intoxication ‘does not feature’ in the offence despite the jury hearing during her trial that a central issue was whether Anderson was driven by mental illness or by cannabis intoxication.
Her barrister, Michael O’Higgins, had argued at the three-judge Court of Appeal that the sentencing judge, Judge Karen O’Connor, did not correctly assess the level of his client’s moral culpability before calculating the sentence.
He said that a previous decision by the Court of Appeal had stated that where diminished responsibility arises as a defence, moral culpability can be ‘extinguished altogether’. In Anderson’s case, counsel said ‘moral culpability is at the lowest possible point’.
He drew the court’s attention to a report written by consultant psychiatrist Dr Brenda Wright who said that Anderson was ‘highly dominated by her mental condition’ which the psychiatrist said was ‘so severe that she was experiencing delusions into which she had no insight’. Anderson had a ‘psychotic moral justification’ for her actions because, Dr Wright said, ‘she delusionally believed’ that her life and the lives of her children were in danger.
Delivering yesterday’s judgment, Judge Isobel Kennedy said this was a ‘profoundly sad and tragic case’. In the absence of a mental disorder, Judge Kennedy agreed with the trial judge that the headline sentence would have been 20 years imprisonment. The judge further agreed with the sentencing judge that, having considered the mental disorder, the headline should be reduced to 13 years.
Judge Kennedy said the sentencing judge had then considered mitigating factors, including the guilty plea and that Anderson had no previous convictions, was a mother who home-schooled her children and had a good work history. Judge O’Connor therefore reduced the sentence to 11 years and suspended the final three for four years on various conditions.
Judge Kennedy said it is difficult to see how a person convicted of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility could be said to have their moral culpability entirely extinguished. She said the trial judge had properly reduced the headline sentence having taken into account that Anderson’s mental state was ‘highly dominated’ but not ‘entirely dominated’ by her mental condition. The ‘substantial reduction’ amounted to more than one third of the headline sentence and therefore ‘properly reflected her mental condition’, Judge Kennedy said.
The discount for mitigating factors, Judge Kennedy said, was ‘entirely within the discretion’ of the sentencing judge and was not an error in principle. Judge O’Connor took considerable care in coming to the final sentence, the appeal court found.
Dismissing all grounds of appeal, Judge Kennedy said the sentence was proportionate.
At the earlier hearing, barrister Paul Greene, for the DPP, said that there was evidence of ‘ongoing aggravation’ from Anderson about people using the parking space at Brownswood Manor where Mr Kelly had left his car overnight and he reminded the court that Anderson, having stabbed Mr Kelly, walked away and then came back and stabbed him again.
‘Reflected her mental condition’