This article is from page 14 of the 2007-12-11 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 14 JPG
A DEFENDANT asked a judge to hand him a sentence after spending four months in custody for what he claimed was the offence of taking a bottle of wine.
David Mulcaire, 31 St Senan’s Road, Ennis, told Ennis District court “you wouldn’t give it to a dog – the four months I mean, not the wine.”
The accused is in custody having been arrested on a number of counts relating to theft.
Previously, Judge Joseph Mangan had heard testimony from two psy- chiatrists on whether Mulcaire was mentally fit to enter a plea to the charges.
On his appearance in court of Fri- day, he asked the judge to allow him go home for Christmas to look af- ter his father. ““He’s never spent the Christmas on his own,’ Mulcaire told the judge.
The psychiatrists had a direct clash of opinion about whether Mulcaire knew what he was doing when he al- legedly committed the offences.
His own doctor said Mulcaire suf- fered a serious brain trauma in 1999, when he was hit in the head with a concrete block. He said it was his opinion that Mulcaire would not be fit to plead.
The psychiatrist who has been treating Mulcaire for Frontal Lobe Syndrome for two years said his “frontal lobe on the left-hand side of his head is wasted… this causes disturbances in mood, disturbances
in will, disturbances in understand- ing and changes in understanding of societal norms”’.
Another consultant psychiatrist, who interviewed Mulcaire on two occasions, said he felt Mulcaire was fit to plead.
He agreed that Mulcaire had a per-
sonality disorder “but his attention span when I spoke to him was rea- sonable except that he repeatedly be- came distracted by attractive nurses and tried to draw them into conver- renee ae
Judge Mangan told Mulcaire he would remand him to the last sitting
of the court before Christmas and make a decision then as to whether he could be released.
“Well, can you not just give me a sentence now then? I’ve already been in for four months,” Mulcaire said.