A lawyer who stabbed his father 27 times during a psychotic episode has been found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

Dáire McCormack George’s short trial at the Central Criminal Court heard that he retains the love and support of his family and friends.

His sister Hillary and mother Goretti attended every day of the court proceedings, joined at times by other family and friends.

McCormack George, 31, stabbed his father, Scott George, 27 times during a relapse of schizoaffective disorder that coincided with a reduction in the dosage of antipsychotic medication he was being prescribed.

He had first been diagnosed with a mental health disorder in 2018 but appeared to have reacted well to treatment.

However, entries in a journal that he wrote in the days leading up to the killing revealed that he had developed a psychotic delusion that his father, who was frail and housebound, was going to kill Goretti and Hillary.

McCormack George told psychiatrists that during the attack, his father told him he loved him but he ‘just kept stabbing him’.

Following the verdict, members of the family hugged one another and shook hands with lawyers for the prosecution and defence.

McCormack George, of Cabra Road, Phibsborough, Dublin 7, had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the murder of his 76-year-old father, who died at his home at Drumans End, Tobersool, Balbriggan on December 12, 2024.

Lawyers for both sides had urged the jury to return the special verdict after two psychiatrists gave evidence that as a result of his mental disorder, McCormack George should not be held responsible.

Judge Eileen Creedon thanked the jury for their attention to what she described as a ‘sad and difficult case’. She remanded McCormack George to the Central Mental Hospital until August 13 when a doctor will outline the ongoing psychiatric treatment he requires.

During the trial, Detective Garda Ultan McElroy said that on December 12, 2024, McCormack George finished work with the solicitor firm Mason Hayes & Curran in Dublin city.

He went to his apartment in Cabra, where he picked up Christmas gifts and two knives. He drove to the family home in Balbriggan where his dad was alone. At about 11pm that night, McCormack George spoke to his sister on the phone telling her that he had killed their father.

Hillary and her mother arrived at the family home about 12 minutes later and found McCormack George with blood on his clothes, and he again told his sister he had killed their father.

During the first of three interviews at Balbriggan Garda Station that night and the following day, McCormack George told gardaí: ‘Yes, I killed him, but I don’t consider myself guilty of a crime. I love my mother and sister, nothing matters more than them.’

He told gardaí that he had a nervous breakdown the previous summer, having gone to Oxford University where he realised he was not as intelligent as he thought he was.

He said he hadn’t been sleeping and believed his dad was going to hurt his mother and sister. He said he ‘just lost it’.

‘I thought I was doing the right thing, but I made it much worse,’ he said during a later interview.