A judge will decide later this morning whether Daniel O’Hara Wright might spend the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital.

The 24-year-old was found not guilty by reason of insanity of murdering his mother, Carole, on a walk in Watlington woods, near Christmas Common, last October.

That verdict could result in him receiving a court order detaining him at a secure psychiatric unit until government ministers deem him safe to be discharged.

Lawyers for the Uxbridge man accepted he had killed his mother but did so during a psychotic episode when he feared she was a demon trying to lure him to his death.

During the gruesome assault he beat her with a stick, stamped on her and removed her eyes.

Following the killing, O’Hara Wright, who has since been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, drank from a muddy pond, threw himself in front of a car, bit the head off a chicken, climbed an electricity pylon and burned his arm so badly it had to be amputated, then broke into a farmhouse where he was found several hours later by police officers.

At the trial at Oxford Crown Court earlier this month, psychiatrists instructed by both the Crown Prosecution Service and the defence agreed that O’Hara Wright was insane at the time of the homicide.

Defence expert Dr Kennedy described him as ‘one of the most psychotic people I’ve seen in 30 years’.

Verdict - and what it means

The jury took around two-and-a-half hours to find O’Hara Wright not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

That verdict – sometimes called a ‘special verdict’ – is an unusual one in English law, requiring jurors to be satisfied the defendant was suffering from a ‘disease of the mind’ and did not know the nature of what they were doing or that it was wrong.

When a ‘special verdict’ is reached, judges must do one of three things:

  1. Impose a hospital order, detaining a defendant for treatment at a psychiatric hospital. In the most serious cases, a judge can make a ‘restriction order’ meaning the Secretary of State has to give their consent before a person can be released.
  2. A supervision order, a rehabilitative order that allows treatment to be given by a registered medical practitioner. The orders last up to two years and are supervised by probation or a social worker
  3. An absolute discharge, meaning a defendant won’t be punished. This might be used if, for example, a defendant is terminally ill, treatment is not practical and they pose no danger to others.

 

READ MORE: Full story of shocking Christmas Common 'murder' trial

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O’Hara Wright – currently receiving treatment at Broadmoor secure psychiatric hospital – is expected to appear before Judge Ian Pringle QC at 11am this morning.

At the conclusion of the trial a week-and-a-half-ago, defence barrister Mark Graffius QC said his client had asked to attend the hearing in person.