ACCUSED HAS ‘LOW LEVEL OF INTELLIGENCE’

A 47-year-old woman who stabbed her partner to death during a drunken row did not have the cognitive resources to act in a different manner on the night, a psychologist has told her trial.

Dr Kevin Lambe, testifying on behalf of the defence in the third week of the Louth woman’s murder trial at the Central Criminal Court, also told the jury that the accused had a very low level of intelligence.

Paula Farrell of Rathmullen Park in Drogheda has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter for the unlawful killing of Wayne ‘Quilly’ McQuillan (30) at Ms Farrell’s home on New Year’s Day 2014.

The mother-of-three testified that Mr McQuillan had tried to have sex with her but she did not want to have sex and he had started strangling her with his hands before she went to the kitchen for a knife. “I thought I was dying, I couldn’t breathe,” she told her barrister Caroline Biggs SC. Ms Farrell has accepted in her evidence that she stabbed Mr McQuillan with a knife four times but said she only remembered stabbing him twice.

Ms Biggs, defending, called clinical psychologist Dr Kevin Lambe to the witness box. Dr Lambe detailed what Ms Farrell had told him about the abuse she suffered from a named man between the ages of seven and 14. He also gave evidence of what she had told him about the killing and her history with alcohol.

Dr Lambe said Ms Farrell was an angry person and this anger prevented her from getting too close to anyone. “She would have found life quite difficult,” he said.

Dr Lambe told the jury that he carried out an intelligence test with Ms Farrell and he found her IQ to be 70, which was a very low level of intelligence. The witness said that persons with “borderline mild-intellectual disabilities” scored between 70 and 79 and Ms Farrell was “just at the cut-off point” for a borderline intellectual disability. This would affect her ability to learn new things and reason, he pointed out.

He agreed with Ms Biggs that Ms Farrell was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a consequence of being sexually abused as a child. He said he characterised this as a mental illness saying: “PTSD is a condition that arises from a protracted response to traumatic events”.

Under cross-examination, Dr Lambe agreed with prosecution counsel Gerard Clarke SC that Ms Farrell’s perception of Mr McQuillan’s sexual advance on her was that he was attacking her and this had caused her to stab him.

Dr Lambe further agreed with Mr Clarke that Ms Farrell had made her first allegation of being sexually attacked by the deceased to him. He also agreed that this sexual attack allegation had occurred 16 months after Mr McQuillan’s death and Ms Farrell had said nothing to gardai about it in her four interviews.

The jury has heard that Ms Farrell’s solicitor served notice on the prosecution on July 7, 2015 of her intention to adduce evidence which would involve an imputation on Mr McQuillan’s character. These allegations included that the deceased had assaulted Ms Farrell causing her harm, sexually assaulted her and raped her on New Year’s Day 2014.

The witness agreed with Mr Clarke that he had attributed Ms Farrell’s actions on the night to her PTSD and being sexually assaulted as a child. “PTSD is part of a group of factors that come together in the killing in this case,” he outlined.

Dr Lambe told Mr Clarke that the accused woman had limited cognitive resources but agreed that there was no relevance between a person’s IQ and committing murder.

However, the witness said that while low IQ does not lead a person to kill another, it was a factor. “Low IQ is a factor amongst many factors that exist in Ms Farrell and she did not have the cognitive resources to act in a different manner on the night in question,” said Dr Lambe.

Mr Clarke asked Dr Lambe if low IQ meant one is likely to be a killer. Dr Lambe said it does not. He will continue to give evidence this week.