He claimed to hear voices from an early age, thought there were worms coming out of his ears, and believed he was able to walk on water and kill cats by looking at them.. PAUL FIELD

A 23-month-old child with a collapsed lung died on an operating table after being ferried between four hospitals in eight hours, an inquest heard yesterday.
Robert Benton was turned away from one hospital because no beds were available, which resulted in a delay in receiving urgent treatment for respiratory difficulties.At the start of the inquest, the jury at Birmingham Coroners Court, heard how Robert was first taken by his parents, Julie Benton, 23, and Tim Dawes, 32, to Sandwell Hospital near their home in Rowley Regis, West Midlands, at around 12.30pm on 7 June last year.In a statement read out to the court, Ms Benton said the accident and emergency department was being refurbished “It was in a terrible mess. He said O’Donnell did not know the nature of his acts, whether they were right or wrong, and was unable to stop himself. “It is my case that this is insanity in anyone’s language.”He said it was “breathtaking” that, despite evidence that he had stabbed his sister and tried to stab her child in 1992, he was freed from a mental hospital in Ballinasloe, Co Galway after just two weeks, without the institution consulting either police, his doctors, or his sister.It emerged O’Donnell had been in seven prisons and detention centres and two mental homes before the age of 20.A schoolteacher said he was “the most disturbed child” he had encountered in 22 years. At his mother’s funeral, when he was aged 10, he jumped into the grave. Patrick McEntee for the defence highlighted “the virtual hell” that had been his life, and described him as “a badly damaged creature”.Mr Haugh said O’Donnell had “set out with pleasure to kill” – arguing there were “vast numbers of people who have bloodlust, who enjoy killing and are not insane”.Mr McEntee countered that O’Donnell’s disturbed behaviour indicated all the signs of schizophrenia. In his summing up, prosecution counsel Kevin Haugh argued that O’Donnell was “cunning, thinking and rational, a clever, self-interested liar.

Taken barefoot and still in her nightclothes, she was forced to drive the fugitive then dragged three miles through a forest. The court was told that O’Donnell did not kill her because he decided he liked her, and she was rescued by armed gardai as he tried to seize another car at gunpoint.The trial hinged on whether the defendant was sane. He also claimed to have been told that Ms Riney was the Devil’s daughter and that Fr Walsh was going to baptise her child, the Devil’s son.O’Donnell had also pleaded not guilty to kidnapping a schoolgirl, Fiona Sampson and the attempted abduction of a farmer, Edward Cleary, on 7 May 1994. He also denied having a shotgun and ammunition with intent to endanger life.Ms Simpson had an extraordinary escape. But the jury at Dublin’s Central Criminal Court found him guilty by a majority of 10-2.O’Donnell, of no fixed address, was first treated with prescribed drugs in mental hospital at the age of three, and diagnosed as possibly psychotic at 14.

ALAN MURDOCH

Dublin
A 22 year-old County Clare man with a history of mental illness was yesterday jailed for life for the murders of three people.Brendan Patrick O’Donnell had denied murdering 29-year-old artist, Imelda Riney, her son Liam, three, and Father Joseph Walsh, 37, of Eyrecourt, Co Galway between 29 April and 8 May 1994. He had attempted suicide on four occasions and twice went on hunger strike after his arrest.He claimed he had been told to shoot the victims by the Devil. But having had an account opened for him with the Woolwich 40 years ago, he still looks set to enjoy his free shares, whether in his garden or elsewhere.. Two brothers are multi-millionaires and a sister in Canada is a successful dress designer, he said earlier this year, adding that his mother thinks he has: “done the best because I have done it all the hard way”.He may have less room for such supposedly disarming modesty now. It was not clear last night with what – if any – payoff he would leave the society. There had been speculation that Mr Robinson had found it difficult working with the current chairman, Sir Brian Jenkins, a former Lord Mayor of London, but this was strongly denied.The now notorious house and garden is in the village of Brasted in Kent, near to the society’s headquarters in Bexleyheath, where Mr Robinson lives with his second wife and two teenage daughters.He was also born in Bexleyheath and went to school locally, at the grammar school in Erith.He was estimated to be earning pounds 300,000 a year and probably stood to benefit from a significant number of share options when the society became a bank.But, interestingly, he noted he was probably the least important of his siblings.

The disqualification of some 40,000 savers who opened accounts this year from the proposed handout of free shares so enraged some savers that they considered legal action. Arguably it was not what he said about having no regrets about “not enfranchising carpetbaggers” – a move which protected more loyal savers and borrowers – but the disdainful way in which he described these windfall hunters that really showed his mettle.He was happy to admit to accusations of having a big ego, and it would not have surprised some observers if yesterday’s ousting had proved to result from a fall out with other board members. He started as a management trainee and became chief executive at the turn of this year, replacing a predecessor who is now to replace him, and who is said to be opposed to the Woolwich’s switch to bank status.It was Mr Robinson who coined the now widely used term “carpetbagger” to describe savers who opened accounts hoping to benefit from the society’s long-anticipated demutualisation. An interview earlier this year produced a quote which today will be seen with more than a touch of irony by the society’s staff: “The staff can really see what I am like when I’m in the shower … I can’t hide anything in there can I?”, he said.Mr Robinson, 54, is a keen cricketer, and is said to have shared a crease with cricketing legends such as Sir Colin Cowdrey and Alec Stewart. He has been a playing member of the MCC and captain of both Bexleyheath and Bromley cricket teams in south-east London.