The daughter of an 88-year-old man, who died after he was attacked as he slept in a hospital bed by a patient he did not know, has called on a judge to impose the maximum sentence permitted in law and to show no pity or leniency to the man who attacked her father.
Retired farmer Matthew Healy, from Berrings in Co Cork, died after he was punched more than 20 times by another patient in the ward where both were being treated at the Mercy University Hospital in Cork on 22 January 2023.
The Central Criminal Court was told that 33-year old Dylan Magee, of Churchfield Green, in Cork, was admitted to the same ward as Mr Healy, suffering hallucinations, having taken cannabis and claiming to have taken 120 benzodiazepine tablets in the week before his hospital admission. A hospital toxicology screening also showed that he had morphine in his system.
On the opening day of his trial at the Central Criminal Court in Cork, Dylan Magee pleaded not guilty to murdering Matthew Healy, at Room 2, St Joseph's Ward, Mercy University Hospital, Cork, on 22 January 2023, but guilty to his manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility.
After three days of evidence, the jury of four women and eight men returned a verdict of guilty of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility.
At a sentencing hearing today, Matthew Healy's daughter, Claire, read a victim impact statement in which she said a verdict of guilty by reason of diminished responsibility would never be acceptable to her.
"I consider such a verdict acceptable only for genuinely ill individuals, not for those suffering delirium due to self-induced drug withdrawal," Claire Healy said.
"We are the product of our choices, and I will never accept excuses suggesting the perpetrator was not responsible for his actions. His own life choices led to him punching our Dad to death. Being rewarded with a lesser sentence due to self-induced diminished capacity is tremendously frustrating and infuriating.
"It is in no way acceptable to us that an offender can be punished less severely for actions directly resulting from their own choices."
Ms Healy called on Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford to impose "the absolute maximum sentence permitted by law" on Dylan Magee.
"He deserves no pity and no leniency," she said. "He extended none to our wonderful Dad.
"Words can't express how traumatising it has been to discover that the attack was carried out by someone who went on a drug binge, suffered delirium from the withdrawal, and then pleaded diminished responsibility."
Defence Senior Counsel Brendan Grehan said he did not wish anything he said in mitigation on behalf of Dylan Magee to take from the rawness or grief of Ms Healy or her family.
However, he pointed out to Ms Justice Lankford that she is bound by previous judgments of the superior courts, who have issued rulings in relation to diminished responsibility.
Ms Justice Lankford said she wished to consider all the issues raised, along with two psychiatric reports and a report prepared by the Probation Service, which found Dylan Magee to be at moderate risk of re-offending.
She said she will sentence Dylan Magee on 17 April.
Also in her victim impact statement to the court, Ms Healy criticised "invasive" media coverage of her father's death.
"I will never forget the incessant clicking of camera shutters as we walked behind our Dad's coffin, or the shock of having media cameras pushed into our car windows as we drove to the cemetery," she said.
"No one should have to endure invasive media seeking sensationalist headlines and spreading inaccurate information during the worst time of their life."
She described her father as a true gentleman.
"At 88 years of age, he deserved to slip away from this world as gently and kindly as the man he was, surrounded by his family, hearing their voices, and knowing he was loved," she said, "not lying in bed terrified, then choking on his own blood after being beaten to death by a man shouting that our Dad had eaten his children."
During the trial, the court had been told that both Dylan Magee and Mr Healy were placed in the same hospital ward but were not known to each other.
The jury heard that Mr Healy went into hospital on 13 January 2023, having suffered a fall at his home. His wife Delia had died earlier that month, having been cared for by her husband at the family home.
The court heard Magee, a father of two, was admitted to hospital on 19 January 2023, in a hallucinatory state. He was seeing dead people and hearing voices.
The court was told he was on anti-depressants for a month prior to his hospital admission. He had self-medicated with cannabis and claimed to have taken 120 benzodiazepine tablets in the week before his hospital admission. A hospital toxicology screening also showed that he had morphine in his system.
When interviewed by gardaí in the aftermath of the attack, Dylan Magee said that someone had been tormenting people on the hospital ward. He admitted that he had "lost the plot" and started beating Mr Healy. He was of the mistaken belief that Mr Healy was a named person in his 20s and that he had "ate his son".
He said that Mr Healy was asleep in the bed across from him when he started "punching him".
He stated that he had probably hit Mr Healy "over 20 times" with his "knuckles in straight punches".
He did not recall wandering around the hospital ward and going up to patients in the hours before the incident.
He said he was "seeing dead people" when he was brought to the GP prior to his hospital admission.
The jury also heard that in a garda interview on 23 January 2023, Dylan Magee was talking to the wall instead of the investigating officers.
Defence Senior Counsel Brendan Grehan, in his closing speech to the jury, said he could not understand why Dylan Magee was placed in a general ward.
"For reasons I don't quite understand, Dylan Magee was put in a general ward with elderly patients. He was hallucinating. He was hearing voices and seeing dead people."
Mr Grehan said that there was no rational explanation for the bizarre behaviour of Dylan Magee and that there was "clearly a mental disorder there".
Defence psychiatrist Dr Stephen Monks told the jury that Dylan Magee’s GP had given him an urgent referral to MUH with suspected delirium. Dr Monks said it was his belief that the delirium evolved into withdrawal delirium.
"That is a life-threatening condition. Or it can be. He was in an acute state of delirium."
Evidence was also given by prosecution psychiatrist, Dr Richard Church, who said that Dylan Magee was very severely impaired to the point of being unable to refrain from acting in the manner in which he did.
Mr Grehan said Dylan Magee "wanted to express, at the earliest appropriate opportunity, his deep remorse for what had happened to Mr Healy, and the distress it obviously caused to his family and friends".
