A Crumlin, Dublin son faces up to 15 years behind bars for the manslaughter of his father in 2018, a Central Criminal Court in Ireland bared at a sentencing hearing held on Monday.
Last year, accused David Fortune, 33, of Rutland Grove in Crumlin, went on trial after being charged with the murder of his father Gerry Fortune, 62, on Aug. 19, 2018. He was re-arraigned on the fifth day of the trial following legal discussions between the parties.
The suspect later pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter, which the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had accepted, the Irish Times reported.
During Monday's trial, the jury had heard that the accused had slashed the Fortune father in the neck in his family home while watching the All-Ireland hurling final in his living room after “a day of drinking and drug-taking," according to DPP's Sean Gillane SC.
The victim reportedly tried to flee from his attacker and ran away holding his slashed neck as blood gushed out from his throat. Attempting to ask for help, he collapsed at the front door of the home, suffering from severe blood loss with a severed main artery in his neck.
The Fortune patriarch, who worked in St. James’ Hospital, was rushed to the health care facility where later he succumbed to his stab wounds as efforts of colleagues to save him went in vain, according to the Irish Mirror.
Following the stabbing, the disoriented Fortune son, wearing only one shoe, allegedly jumped through the front window of the home and hijacked a car on Rutland Grove. He then dashed to Blanchardstown Hospital where he frantically told staff that his father had been trying to kill him.
Fortune was seized by Gardai following alerts from the hospital. The man, seemingly deranged from the drugs he had taken earlier, was given Valium by the hospital’s emergency department staff.
Gillane told Justice Eileen Creedon that the killing of Fortune in 2018 fell at the upper end of seriousness for manslaughter, demanding that the defendant be thrown in jail for up to 15 years.
According to witnesses, the accused and several guests were in a granny flat for a gathering at the house on the day of the fatal assault.
The accused allegedly was in a state of paranoia following a quarrel with his half-brother Gerard Lambe, who was accused of forcibly administering black-market diazepam tablets in the suspect's mouth earlier in the day to calm him down.
Lambe had denied the allegations but admitted that he handed the accused the blue tablets.
Their sister, Laura Lambe, had testified before the court and said that the accused was having hallucinations minutes before the fatal stabbing, confirming that her brother had consumed several blue tablets in the lead-up to the attack, according to Sunday World.
She broke down in tears while recalling the harrowing final moments of her father. She said that the victim was trying to calm down the accused, who thought someone wanted to kill him.
“Da, I’m going to die,” the accused said according to Lambe, to which the father allegedly replied: “You’re not going to die, son. Nobody is going to die today.”
The Lambe sister had told local authorities that the accused seemed around the bend, "wasn’t in his body," as well as was "paranoid, hallucinating, possessed, and frothing at the mouth" that day. She described her brother's eyes to be black and that he was expressionless “probably” as a result of the drugs he had taken.
The accused's camp argued that David Fortune never intended to kill his father, citing that there was neither rational motivation nor suggestion of premeditation for the killing. Michael Bowman SC said that there was strong evidence suggesting that his client was hallucinating and that he believed people were trying to harm and kill him.
It was a “tragedy of diabolical proportions” as a result of paranoia and hallucinations the accused suffered after taking drugs, he said.
The defendant was jailed for eight years in 2006 for the manslaughter of a man named Michael Murphy following another incident of a deadly stabbing outside a bar in Blanchardstown on Halloween night 2004.
The accused is awaiting sentencing slated for June 28.
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