CORK, Ireland — An Irish court has sentenced a Nigerian man to three and a half years in prison after he admitted to the manslaughter of his 82-year-old grandmother during what the court described as a severe psychotic episode.
The defendant, Brian Ogbo, had pleaded guilty at the Cork Circuit Criminal Court to the killing of his grandmother, Stella Nnadi, at the family home in Carrigaline, County Cork, on February 23, 2025.
According to proceedings reported in Irish media, Ogbo had moved from Nigeria to Ireland in December 2024 to join his mother, Ruby Ogbo, and his grandmother.
The court heard that Ogbo, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2017, missed two scheduled anti-psychotic injections after arriving in Ireland.
His mother, a social worker, had reportedly made repeated efforts to obtain treatment for him through the Irish mental health system.
Judge Sinead Behan said the defendant had been “in the obvious throes of a psychotic episode” at the time of the incident.
Detective Garda Tom Delaney told the court that Ogbo had spent hours pacing around the house before the attack, damaging parts of the kitchen and eating all the food in the home.
According to Delaney, tensions escalated after Ruby Ogbo confronted her son about the food.
“She told him she worked hard for it. She threatened to take his phone off him and remove the WiFi in the house,” Delaney said.
The detective said Ruby later removed the internet router and left the house, after which Ogbo allegedly followed her while carrying scissors.
“Ogbo pushed Ruby to the ground in the kitchen and punched her in the head while she was on the ground,” Delaney told the court.
The court heard that Ogbo then went upstairs looking for his grandmother, who had locked herself inside a bathroom.
“He shouted at her to open the door. The deceased shouted, ‘Oh my God.’ ‘Oh my God,’” Delaney said.
According to evidence presented in court, Ruby fled the home and sought help from neighbours, telling them that her son was going to kill her mother.
The court was told that Ogbo later forced open the bathroom door, dragged his grandmother downstairs and pushed her outside the house.
“Stella managed to make her way out of the house and into the neighbour’s house, where she joined her daughter Ruby,” Delaney said.
Although Nnadi initially did not appear to require hospital treatment, her condition worsened two days later. Medical examinations later revealed bleeding on the brain, and she died in hospital on February 25, 2025.
A postmortem examination found that she died from blunt force trauma to the head sustained after being forced down the stairs.
Defence counsel Jane Hyland described the case as “a tragedy for the family and also a tragedy for Mr Ogbo.”
Hyland told the court that Ogbo had shared a close relationship with his grandmother and had been deeply affected by her death.
“She said that the mental state of the accused was so impaired at the time of the offence that he was unable to refrain from committing the act,” the court heard.
The defence also argued that Ogbo could have met the legal threshold for a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity had the case proceeded to trial.
Judge Behan criticised shortcomings in mental health care provision, saying the death could “arguably have been prevented.”
She also referred to what she called “unforgivable failures” in psychiatric support services.
The court heard that an appointment for psychiatric treatment arrived by post two days after the killing.
In sentencing, Behan imposed a five-year prison term but suspended the final 18 months. The sentence was backdated to February 27, 2025, when Ogbo was first remanded in custody.
The court also ordered that Ogbo continue engaging with mental health and probation services following his release.
