A Dublin woman accused of killing her husband had stabbed him three years earlier after she learned he had a lap dance in a nightclub, a court heard earlier this week.
Forty-year-old Tanya Doyle, of Pairc Gleann Trasna, Aylesbury, Tallaght, has pleaded not guilty to murdering her husband, 48-year-old Paul Byrne on September 4, 2009.
Byrne was stabbed multiple times and suffered an excess of 60 stab wounds, including defensive wounds, according to Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis.
The Irish Examiner reports that Defence Counsel Mr Brendan Grehan SC told the Central Criminal Court jury at the beginning of the trial that it was admitted his client alone killed Mr Byrne, and that the issue in the trial would be Ms Doyle’s mental state at the time of the murder.
The court has heard Ms Doyle also stabbed Mr Byrne twice on one occasion in 2006 after he went to a booth in Stringfellows nightclub for a lapdance. No prosecution had been brought in relation to that incident as Bynre had made no complaint at the time.
Ms Doyle, who has been treated for schizoaffective disorder and schizophrenia since 1998, said she did not know why she stabbed her husband and that she was upset for him but did not understand why she did not feel worse.
Dr Niall Pender, who is Head of Psychology at Beaumont Hospital and interviewed Ms Doyle at the Dochas women’s prison in 2011, said the accused had very serious mental health difficulties and was a very vulnerable individual at the mercy of her emotions.
He told the court Ms Doyle had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in 2004.
Dr Pender also said the Ms Doyle had told him she had worked as a prostitute for several year and had a history of taking cocaine.
He said that her cognitive difficulties and drug use would make it very hard for her to control her emotions and told the court she had a mental illness and delusions at that time of the incident.
Police officer Michelle McGuinness told the defense counsel that on August 30, 2009 Ms Doyle walked into the Tallaght Garda Station asking to speak to a member of the gardai and had told her that she ran a high-class escort agency with Byrne and two other men in 2008 and 2009. She had given an interview about the agency to a newspaper in March 2009 and that her husband and the two other men were "out for revenge for ratting." Ms Doyle told Gda McGuinness that was afraid to go home and was going to stay in a hotel.
That same night, Ms Doyle told Superintendent Lordan that she was concerned "someonehad it in for her" because of the article in the newspaper. She said she was also concerned that someone was putting gas through the door of her house and made a complaint about someone cutting her hair.
Although she said her husband and the two other men were out to get her, Supt Lordan said he was satisfied she had no complaint to make as this had not happened in the recent past, the Irish Examiner reports.
When Mr Bernard Condon SC prosecuting cross-examined Lordan, the superintendent confirmed that Ms Doyle rang a friend in Belfast the day of the stabbing, saying "I have to get out of here, I have to get out of here."
Ms Doyle told her friend that her husband was driving her up the wall but she did not specifically ask her friend for help.
Supt Lordan said he did not have any concerns over her mental health state when she was being questioned over the stabbing and that if he had he would have dealt with it under the Mental Health Act of 2001.
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