Murder trial switches focus to Cawley’s mental health

Alan Cawley’s trial for the murder of the Blaine brothers switched focus on Tuesday last (Day 5), when the defendant’s mental health came under scrutiny. Days 1-4 had largely focused on the gruesome deaths suffered by the elderly siblings, who both had special needs.
Mr Cawley (30) of Four Winds, Corrinbla, Ballina, has admitted killing Thomas Blaine (69) and John (Jack) Blaine (76). However, he has pleaded not guilty to murdering them on July 10, 2013, at their home on New Antrim Street in Castlebar.
Giving evidence for the defence, consultant psychiatrist Dr Pawan Rajpal argued that the accused has three mental disorders: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder.
“He’s less able than people who don’t have these diagnoses to control impulses, less able to learn from past mistakes,” he explained, adding that all three disorders would have ‘diminished his responsibility for his actions in more than a trivial or minimal way’.  

Changed behaviour
The psychiatrist noted that Alan Cawley’s parents had described his behaviour changing as a baby, at around four to six months of age, post vaccination. They recalled lots of screaming and that he did not like physical touch. By the time he was a year old, they said, he’d begun banging his head. By age two, he was crying so much that he had to be sedated by a GP.
Between the ages of five and 12, Cawley was setting fires and attracting frequent complaints from neighbours about cruelty to animals.
Dr Rajpal noted from the defendant’s medical records that he had first seen a psychologist at the age of four and had been diagnosed with ADHD at the age of eleven. He had spent six months in hospital at that time. The diagnoses of Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder came later.
Dr Rajpal said he was satisfied that he was suffering from all three diagnoses at the time of the offences, and that all three were mental disorders and diseases of the mind under the Criminal Law Insanity Act 2006.
If satisfied that Mr Cawley had a qualifying mental disorder, the jury could find him guilty of manslaughter rather than murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Psychiatrist challenged
On Day 6 (Wednesday last), Dr Rajpal’s evidence was challenged by a forensic psychiatrist for the State. Dr Brenda Wright told the murder trial that although he had personality disorders when he killed two elderly brothers with special needs, those disorders did not qualify as mental disorders ‘in law’.
Dr Wright agreed with Dr Rajpal’s diagnoses of both Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder and Anti-Social Personality Disorder. However, she disagreed with his opinion that they were mental disorders under the Criminal Law Insanity Act 2006.
She said that the types of disorders allowed under the act impaired a person’s capacity or ability to make decisions, to understand or remember information needed to make decisions, to weigh up the pros and cons of decisions or to communicate them. She said that a personality disorder did not. “Therefore, it’s my view it’s not a mental disorder under the act,” she said.
With regards to the diagnosis of ADHD, Dr Wright said that she looked for behaviour that would suggest such a difficulty in videos of the Gardaí interviews with Cawley in the days after the killing. However, she said she found none.
The following day, Day 7, Dr Wright again took the stand, and reitterated that, in her view, ‘Mr Cawley did not have a mental disorder at the time of the alleged indexed offences’.
She also argued that Cawley had been in a state of intoxication, and that entering into this state had been voluntary. “He was also aware of his propensity to violence when intoxicated, with a long history of acting violently in the context of drug and alcohol misuse,” she added. “It’s my view that at the time, Mr Cawley’s state of intoxication led him to act in an extremely impulsive and violent way, which led to the deaths of Thomas and John (Jack) Blaine.”

Closing speeches
Day 8 (Friday) saw the defence and the prosecution teams deliver their closing speeches to the court.
The prosecution argued that the accused had made a decision to kill the two elderly brothers in acts of extreme violence. The defence argued that his mental disorders had played a role in the killings, and thereby diminishing his responsibility.
Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, told the jury that the issue was not whether  that the accused had caused the ‘harmless and very well loved’ brothers’ deaths. “The issue is whether that amounted to murder or manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility,” he said. “It’s the prosecution case that it amounts to murder.”
He retraced the Blaine brothers’ final hours, framing Cawley’s actions as opportunistic and deliberate.
He reminded the jury that the State’s psychiatrist had said that his two personality disorders were not mental disorders under the Criminal Law Insanity Act 2006, as required for a defence of diminished responsibility. She was also of the opinion that he did not have ADHD, as claimed by the defence.
“He may have been unable to control his impulses on the night but that does not mean he had a mental disorder,” he concluded. “I suggest you should find him guilty of the murder of Jack Blaine and of the murder of Thomas Blaine on the night.”
Caroline Biggs SC, defending said she had no doubt that the jury had found her client’s acts repulsive. “That disgust and hatred for what he did is palpable in this room,” she said.
However, she said that the defence’s submission was that he had a mental disorder. She noted that Cawley had been released from prison just days before the killing.
“He was let out in July of 2013 without a prescription for anything, having spent most of his adult life on tranquillisers prescribed by competent doctors,” she said, questioning the prosecution’s contention that his actions were ‘all down to drink’.
She said that the act in question said that it was the jury alone who must decide whether he suffered from a mental disorder at the time. “You have a constitutional mandate to decide it,” she added.
She said that her client shouldn’t be in the same category as people who go out and get drunk and then do reckless things. “Alan Cawley didn’t ask for these [mental] disorders. He was born with them,” she said. “He didn’t ask for a life of torment. It was a poisoned gift he was given at birth.”
She asked for a verdict of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
The trial is being heard in the Central Criminal Court by Mr Justice Paul Coffey and a jury of four women and eight men, who began their deliberations yesterday (Monday).