The Court of Appeal has quashed guilty verdicts against Darius Alchimionek for manslaughter and assault causing harm, ruling that the jury’s rejection of his insanity defence was unsupported by the evidence and had to be regarded as perverse.
The court’s judgment, delivered on 19 February 2019, concerned convictions returned by a jury at Tullamore Circuit Court on 28 April 2017. Alchimionek had been convicted of the manslaughter of John Gorman and the assault causing harm of Gorman’s brother, Adam, arising from a road collision at Geashill, County Offaly, on 29 December 2015. He was later sentenced to nine years in prison, with three years suspended on the manslaughter charge, and disqualified from holding a driving licence for 40 years.
The Court of Appeal said there was no dispute at trial about the collision’s circumstances. The judgment records that Alchimionek’s car crossed onto the opposite side of a relatively straight road and collided head-on with a vehicle driven by John Gorman. John died, and Adam, who was a passenger, suffered significant injuries.
The defence argued at trial that the appropriate verdict was not guilty by reason of insanity. Consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Stephen Monks testified that Alchimionek had a mental disorder and that the collision may have been a suicide attempt. He described a history of severe depression and an evolving psychosis related to a perceived terrorist threat. The prosecution did not challenge his evidence. Its psychiatrist, Dr Ronan Mullaney, had a different diagnosis, psychotic depression, but the judgment says the two experts were broadly in agreement.
The trial judge told jurors that the medical evidence appeared to leave them no option but to accept the insanity defence if satisfied on the balance of probabilities, while also reminding them that assessing the evidence was their function. After deliberating for two hours and 50 minutes, the jury returned majority guilty verdicts, by 11 to one. During deliberations, jurors asked why interview records were unsigned and sought to see a laptop on which Alchimionek had watched films. On appeal, Alchimionek argued those questions showed the jury had speculated beyond the evidence.
The Director of Public Prosecutions argued that quashing the verdict would reduce the jury to a rubber stamp, and relied on the jury’s central role in deciding insanity pleas. The Court of Appeal acknowledged that setting aside a jury verdict as perverse is exceptional, but concluded that this case required it: the guilty verdicts were “not supported by any evidence” and were “against all of the evidence”. The court quashed the guilty verdicts. The judgment does not state any further order about a retrial or sentence.