A jury has returned a verdict of unlawful killing in the case of 20-year-old Sligo man Jimmy Loughlin who died after being attacked by a stranger with a crowbar at his home.
The jury found that his death was due to traumatic head injuries as a result of assault.
Mr Loughlin, a native of Ballintogher, Co Sligo was killed in his rented home at Connolly Street, Sligo on February 24th, 2018 when Richard McLaughlin attacked him with a crowbar.
In July 2019, at the Central Criminal Court, Mr McLaughlin (35), with an address at The Laurels, Woodtown Lodge, Sligo was found not guilty by reason of insanity of the murder of Mr Loughlin.
On Tuesday, at the end of the two-day inquest in Sligo courthouse, the jury recommended that when a person diagnosed with a serious mental health illness is discharged into the community there be regular and continuous inter-agency liaison.
The coroner Eamon MacGowan had urged the jury to bring in a verdict of unlawful death, saying it was “the very least Jimmy Loughlin deserved”.
Damien Tansey SC, representing Mr Loughlin’s family, said they had been through an “unspeakable tragedy” with their only son struck down in the prime of his life in his own apartment.
The family had been devastated by this tragedy but felt they had to get justice for their son. Speaking after the verdict, he said they now had some closure and information they did not have before.
Ms Paula Loughlin, Mr Loughlin’s mother, said they had got “justice for Jimmy”.
Pointing out that Mr Loughlin did not know Mr McLaughlin and had never met him “until that fateful day February 24th, 2018”, Mr Tansey said that as far back as 2012 “stranger homicide” had been flagged by a psychiatrist who assessed Mr McLaughlin, and that had come to pass.
He told the jury the Loughlin family had to go to the High Court to access Mr McLaughlin’s medical records and only then did they discover a 20-year history of “a propensity towards violence”, not only towards his own mother but to others.
He said that 20 years into his illness, Mr McLaughlin had killed a man “in a most gruesome and violent way”.
Mr Tansey said the HSE had in 2012 commissioned a forensic assessment of Mr McLaughlin and then “paid lip service to it”.
The jury of four men and three women had been told a consultant psychologist who did a review of Mr McLaughlin in 2012 found he was a high risk for matricide, suicide and for “stranger homicide” because of his persecutory delusions.
Dr Paul O’Connell recommended Mr McLaughlin not reside with his mother on discharge because of the risk to her and that he be placed in a 24-hour supervised accommodation and attend daily at hospital.
The assessment was commissioned after an incident that year when Mr McLaughlin had threatened his mother with a machete and tied her up with her dressing gown belt, holding her against her will for over two hours in her bedroom.
The consultant forensic psychiatrist attached to the Central Mental Hospital found the young man was schizophrenic, recording in a report that the patient started drinking and smoking cannabis at 11 or 12. Mr McLaughlin admitted to having used Ecstasy and cocaine but told the psychiatrist he had given them up some years ago.
Mr Luan O’Braonain SC for the Sligo Leitrim Mental Health Services and the HSE said under the Mental Health Act 2001 there were strict rules governing involuntary admission to psychiatric hospitals .
He said Mr Tansey’s suggestions that Mr McLaughlin could have been involuntarily detained on other occasions was to ignore the law and the checks and balances in place before a person’s freedom could be taken away.
The jury was told Mr McLaughin had been “sectioned” twice and local gardaí were so concerned about the risks he posed to his mother and others they had asked to be notified when he was discharged.
