'Remorseless' murderer who stabbed disabled victim 183 times loses appeal

Remorseless murderer Philip Dunbar, who claimed he was suffering from a mental disorder due to chronic drug use when he stabbed a disabled homeless man 183 times, is to remain in prison after losing an appeal against his conviction.

Philip Dunbar (23) appeared before the three-judge Court of Appeal via video-link from prison today while Mr Justice John Edwards dismissed each ground of his appeal in a lengthy 100-page judgment.

Mr Justice Edwards described one ground of appeal as "bordering on unstatable" and said that another argument claiming that the use of CCTV was a breach of his rights was "misconceived". Having noted that similar submissions regarding the use of CCTV had been made "at length" in other trials, Mr Justice Edwards commented: "Valuable court time should not be taken up with such unmeritorious arguments."

Dunbar, last of Glenshane Drive, Tallaght, Dublin 24, murdered 23-year-old Adam 'Floater' Muldoon at Butler Park, Jobstown, Tallaght, Dublin 24 on June 22 or 23, 2018. Dunbar, who was 17 at the time, stabbed Mr Muldoon 183 times in an unprovoked attack.

After the murder, the trial heard that Dunbar went to a friend's house, where he boasted that he had "slaughtered Floater" and "put him out of his misery" as the victim "begged for his life". He was found guilty of murder by a unanimous jury verdict at the Central Criminal Court before Mr Justice Paul McDermott.

Lawyers for Dunbar said that they should have been allowed to argue his responsibility for the killing was diminished due to a mental disorder caused by chronic drug abuse and that the gathering of CCTV used in the trial breached his privacy rights.

Mr Justice Edwards said that the burden rests with the defence where they intend to rely on a mental disorder to reduce a murder conviction to manslaughter. The defence, he said, was free to call an expert to identify a mental disorder "if they could find one". In the absence of an expert opinion from a consultant psychiatrist that Dunbar was suffering from a mental disorder, Mr Justice Edwards said it would not be proper to allow a jury to consider that defence.

The evidence of consultant psychiatrist Dr Brenda Wright was that Dunbar's symptoms were "abnormal" but they were associated with the use of drugs and if he did have hallucinations, he recognised that they were unreal and they were therefore only "pseudo hallucinations". During the trial, Dr Wright said that, in her opinion, Dunbar did not have a mental disorder at the time of the murder.

Even if the jury had rejected Dr Wright's evidence, Mr Justice Edwards said there was no other evidence to satisfy a jury that Dunbar suffered from a mental disorder at the time.

In relation to the CCTV evidence, Mr Justice Edwards said the privacy arguments advanced were "quite simply misconceived". He said it is not realistic to expect that people walking in public areas would have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" and it would be a "grave dereliction of duty" by gardai if they did not seek out CCTV footage that could help in either convicting or exonerating a person accused of a crime.

The court dismissed further grounds concerning the admissibility of admissions made by the accused during garda interviews and the evidence of a key witness who was not publicly identified during the trial due to a court order.

Evidence  

Mr Muldoon was living as a homeless person in Tallaght before he died. Witnesses at the trial said that the community in Glenshane would support him by feeding him and giving him clothes. He knew Dunbar and on the sunny summer evening before he died, he was hanging out with a small group of young people from the area, including his killer.

Most of the group went home at about 11pm and at 23.50 a camera attached to a house in Glenshane Drive caught Dunbar leading Mr Muldoon into the park, helping him over a low wall on the way in. 23 minutes later Dunbar, having carried out the murder, could be seen back in Glenshane Drive on his own.

At one point he held Mr Muldoon's Zimmer frame over his head as he walked towards his grandmother's house, where he was living at the time.

Having visited his own home, Dunbar then went to a friend's house where he admitted he had just stabbed "Floater". That friend gave evidence that Dunbar had arrived at his home still carrying the bloody knife and "boasted" about the murder, telling him he had put Mr Muldoon "out of his misery".

He said Dunbar had said for a long time that he wanted to put Mr Muldoon "out of his misery" and that he wanted to know what it was like to kill someone. He said the accused told him: "Now I know what it's like to be a killer. I know how it feels to be a killer."

The witness said Dunbar told him that he knew Mr Muldoon was dead "the second I got him in the neck" but that he "kept going and kept going", changing the hand that he was holding the knife in so that he could keep going.