A man accused of murdering a garda two years ago has told a jury that he has a long history of psychiatric illness and was not well and living in a shed at the time of the killing.
Stephen Silver, 46, from Foxford in Co Mayo, has pleaded not guilty to murdering a garda acting in the course of his duty, but has admitted manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility.
Detective Garda Colm Horkan was shot 11 times with his garda-issued gun in Castlerea, Co Roscommon on 17 June 2020.
The prosecution case has now ended and Mr Silver this afternoon began giving evidence in his own defence.
Mr Silvertold defence counsel Roisin Lacey that he had 17 admissions to psychiatric institutions, beginning when he was a young man. He was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder.
Det Garda Horkan was among gardaí who accompanied him to hospital after an incident in 2003, but Mr Silver said he had no recollection of this.
Mr Silver told the court he would take his medications for a while each time he was released from hospital but he would then wean himself off them as he felt they slowed him down.
He said he sometimes drank too much alcohol, which would affect his condition.
Mr Silver said he split up with his wife in February 2020 and moved out into a flat in Foxford. But by June that year, he could no longer afford the rent and had moved into a corner of a large shed he bought with help from his mother for his motorcycle repair business. There was no running water or heat in the building.
At the time, however, he said he thought he was doing great. He felt full of energy and was cycling and walking and training. He felt everything was right with the world.
On 15 June, the court heard he went to Dublin to stay in a hotel with an Australian woman he had met in Temple Bar after a concert. She was leaving to go back to Australia and they intended to stay at the hotel for three days.
But he said he changed his mind and decided to go home a day early as the woman was on her phone all the time and he started to think she was "up to no good".
Mr Silver told Ms Lacey he thought the woman was making a film about him and later thought she was in MI6 and sent to get rid of him.
He said he thought some English men who were working on a building site were members of the SAS and thought they were communicating with the woman by phone. He said these were fleeting thoughts. One minute he would think that and the next he would be grand again.
After one night, he moved into a separate hotel room and thought the woman, who was irate, was going to push him out the window of her room.
He said he started ringing people and looking back, this was a sign he was getting a bit hyper. He told the court he had thoughts earlier of signing himself in to hospital to get some respite, but this thought went out of his head.
On the morning of 17 June, he gave the woman money for a taxi to the airport, and decided to head home.
The court watched CCTV footage of Mr Silver leaving the hotel. The footage showed him in a press-up position looking under his van to see if there was anything underneath it and doing the same to the front of the van.
As he headed back home, he said he was feeling elated as he felt he had followed orders to get an MI6 operative sent home. He said this was all in his head.
Later on, the woman sent Mr Silver an emoji of a broken heart and in return he sent her a selfie in which he was wearing a Roscommon hat and a leather waistcoat.
He said he considered this to be his work attire as he was going to "police the streets for Covid and the like". He said he also thought in his head that he was a sergeant in a special operations unit of the Irish army.
The court heard that when he returned to Castlerea on 17 June, a friend showed him a video clip of armed gardaí at another man's house. Mr Silver said he had not seen the other man in 13 years, but decided to call to him and was very sad to see his house was in very bad condition with mould on walls and peeling wallpaper. He asked him to come with him to his shed in Foxford for a change of scene.
Mr Silver agreed that he stopped at the garda station in Castlerea on the way. He said he did not know why he did it, but he knew he went in and "ranted at the front desk" about the way he believed they had treated his friend. He said this was not something he would normally do.
At his shed, he gave his friend a motorbike. This was a bike he had been working on for three years, he said. It was worth €2,500 and he would never give it to anyone.
Mr Silver also gave his friend around €1,000 worth of bike gear. He said he felt sorry for his friend. But he said he was not well, as he would not have given away the bike if he was well.
He said he remembered riding the motorbike around an estate in Castlerea that night with no helmet on, but he did not remember roaring and shouting as he did so.
Mr Silver also told Ms Lacey he had now been taking his medication for two-and-a-half years and was "okay".
He will continue his evidence tomorrow.
