Stab man 'not guilty but insane'

Belfast Crown Court heard details of the stabbing

A man who stabbed a work colleague in the neck because he believed he was on an MI5 mission has been found not guilty due to insanity.

Belfast Crown Court heard Lewis Alexander Mawhinney, 24, of Knockburn Drive, Lisburn, stabbed Stephen Hayes in a lift on 21 September last year.

The men had been attending an induction course for a Belfast-based call centre.

A psychiatrist told the court Mawhinney was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time.

Consultant psychiatrist Dr Gerard Loughry said that from examining Mawhinney's medical records and from interviewing him, he had concluded Mawhinney would not have appreciated what he had done was morally or legally wrong.

He told the court that Mawhinney had claimed that while studying modern languages at Oxford University, he had been recruited by MI5, and that when he stabbed Mr Hayes he was acting in accordance with instructions given by his handler.

Academic success

Prosecuting QC, Philip Mateer, said that "without warning", Mawhinney had raised his right hand, stabbed Mr Hayes in the neck and that when the lift stopped at the second floor, other colleagues disarmed and restrained Mawhinney who was arrested by police.

Mawhinney was originally charged with attempted murder but that was "left on the books" when the prosecution proceeded with a charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Mawhinney, who had significant academic success, claimed that while working for the secret service, he had been sent to Berlin where he had obtained secret finance documents from the ministry. When he returned to Northern Ireland, he believed he was under surveillance from either MI5 or police special branch.

Dr Loughry said that Mawhinney, had told another doctor in February 2006, the TV was "talking to him and that the radio was replicating everything he was saying on the telephone".

He said the symptoms indicated that Mawhinney was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, a view echoed by another consultant psychiatrist whose statement was read to the jury.

After being found not guilty, Mawhinney was remanded into custody until next month.