A JURY WILL decide if a mentally ill man, who stabbed a woman he was having an affair with to death after becoming convinced she was an undercover agent sent to poison him, should be found not guilty by reason of insanity or if his responsibility for the killing was diminished due to his disorder.

In his closing speech, prosecution barrister Conor Devally SC told the jury that Valerijs Leitons should be seen as substantially diminished in his responsibility due to the nature of his mental disorder.

Whereas the accused man’s barrister, Michael Bowman SC, asked the jury not to “visit criminal responsibility” on his client and recognise that his “deep-seated mental illness” had “crossed the threshold” of diminished responsibility and brought him into “a further place”.

Leitons (25), a Latvian national but with an address at St Kevin’s Gardens, Dartry, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to murdering Skaidrite Valdgeima (34) on 26 June 2019 at the Binary Hub aparthotel on Bonham Street, Dublin 8.

The Central Criminal Court trial has heard that Leitons and Valdgeima, a married woman, had struck up a friendship that became a sexual relationship. The couple met at a concert in May 2019 and began seeing each other frequently over the following weeks.

A pathologist’s report found Valdgeima had suffered “multiple penetrating slash and stab wounds, particularly to the face, head and neck”.

Dr Allan Cala, who carried out the post-mortem examination, told the jury that the deceased had “defence-type injuries on both arms”. He suggested these likely happened when she tried to grab the knife or tried to block it.

Devally told the jury today that Leitons’ mental disorder was the “decisive issue” in the case and the only matter between the parties was to what degree he was inflicted by this in the early hours of the morning on 26 June. “There is nothing to suggest that what he laboured under was anything other than a mental disorder,” he added.

Devally advised the jury that their first approach should be to determine whether Leitons met “any single one” of the three criteria under the Criminal Law (Insanity) Act 2006.

The barrister reminded the 12 jurors of the evidence from psychiatrists Dr Ronan Mullaney and Dr Damien Smith, both from the Central Mental Hospital. He said: “Dr Smith said he doesn’t meet any of the three criteria, Dr Mullaney said he meets all three. You have two very conflicting thoughts”.

To meet the verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, the jury must find that Leitons was suffering from a mental disorder such that he should not be held responsible for the killing because he did not know the nature and quality of his actions, or he did not know what he was doing was morally wrong, or was unable to refrain from committing the act.

‘Entirely innocent victim’

Dr Mullaney said yesterday that Leitons was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the offence, that he met all three criteria and qualified for a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

The consultant forensic psychiatrist disagreed with his colleague Dr Smith who last week told the trial that the accused was suffering with a mental disorder but was not impaired enough to meet any of the three criteria for a “not guilty by reason of insanity” verdict.

Devally said the evidence from Dr Smith suggested that the accused knew the nature and quality of his actions at the time of the killing and its wrongfulness despite his mental disorder but said it was “very much a matter” for them.

Dr Smith, the lawyer said, had concentrated to a greater degree on what was proximate to the event such as the accused’s text messages and garda interviews and what had arisen from them. Counsel said Dr Smith’s view was that Leitons was aware of his psychotic condition and therefore had sufficient insight to deprive him of the three criteria.

Referring to the third criteria of being unable to refrain from committing the act, Devally said that when it came to compulsion, it did not appear from the evidence that the accused “had no other way out”.

Overall, he said, the case “boiled down to the nature and degree of the accused’s mental disorder”.

In summary, the barrister said that due to the accused’s mental disorder he should be seen as substantially diminished in his responsibility. “This is about justice too and a proper reflection of what you think of the evidence,” he concluded.

In his closing address, Bowman said that in truth there was very little between the prosecution and defence but pointed out that a mental disorder was at the heart of the case.

Valdgeima was an “entirely innocent victim” of what happened that night and it was utterly unjustified that her life was taken in such a way, he stated.

Unfortunately, counsel said, what happened that night was a manifestation of the accused’s mental illness, which was “deep-seated and engrained”. Leitons was suffering and acting in the grips of an acute psychosis relapse of paranoid schizophrenia, he said, which was a position that everyone acknowledged.

Bowman said his client’s illness went as far back as 2018 when he presented himself at St James’s Hospital and fell into the care of psychiatrists, all who understood him to have a “schizophrenic difficulty”, and he was deemed an emergency admission. “The accused said this disease will ruin my life and unfortunately it did more than that, he took another’s,” said the lawyer.

Bowman reminded the jury that the facilitator attendant at the Binary Hub aparthotel, Brian Keenan, had told the defence during the trial had told the defence during the trial that the accused was “acting bizarrely and out of his mind” that night. “He quite easily could look into the accused’s eyes, which is not something to be easily overlooked.

The accused was acting in a detached and idiosyncratic manner,” he said.

Overall, Bowman said, Leitons had seen a reality which was detached from the truth and that is what compelled him to act in the way he did. The totality of the accused’s behaviour did not suggest that he was behaving in a moral or rational manner that night, he continued.

Everyone, he said, wanted the appropriate verdict which delivered justice to the deceased’s family and recognised that there was a mental illness at play. “But for paranoid schizophrenia we would not be where we are today and there is no issue taken by the parties in relation to it,” he added.

Each of the two doctors, Bowman said, had approached the case from the same background, using the same documents but had arrived at a different conclusion.

Mullaney’s findings were not qualified “in any shape or form” unlike Dr Smith, who had “four bases to advance his position”. “It appears that Dr Smith took the view that the normal behaviour of the defendant was communicative of rational action,” he said, asking the jury to prefer Dr Mullaney’s position.

Ultimately, Mr Bowman said, this case was a question of which of the offerings the jury accepted. “It’s a question of degree, fine margins and that goes to the heart of how as a society we treat and punish,” he pointed out.

He stated that the prosecution was asking the jury to “visit criminal responsibility” on the defendant in the form of a verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Instead, Bowman said, the defence was asking the jury to recognise what they believe to be “abundantly clear” to those present at the scene and which was borne out by Dr Mullaney’s evidence.

Counsel argued that the accused’s “deep-seated mental illness” crossed the threshold of diminished responsibility and brought him into “a further place”.

Counsel added that the defence was not asking for gratuity or an excuse for Leitons but rather for a verdict that was in accordance with the preponderance of the evidence, namely not guilty by reason of insanity.

In his charge to the jury, Justice Paul Burns said that the jury can return four verdicts in relation to the murder charge against Leitons, namely; guilty of murder, not guilty, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility or not guilty by reason of insanity.

The judge said the case was unusual in that neither side was pushing for one of the standard verdicts of guilty of murder or not guilty. In reality, Justice Burns said the jury was being asked to determine between the two verdicts of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility or not guilty by reason of insanity.

The jury of seven men and five women will commence their deliberations tomorrow.

Comments have been closed as legal proceedings are ongoing.