Botley murder jury hears from psychiatrist as trial enters week two

Coman, now 34, has admitted stabbing Leonid Laboshin to death at their house share in Pinnocks Way on October 17, 2021. But he denies murder, pleading guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Giving evidence to jurors at Oxford Crown Court on Monday (March 6), Dr Mohammad Hussain charted the various delusional beliefs the defendant had described to him across two interviews.

READ MORE FROM MURDER TRIAL

• First picture of accused Eugen Coman
• Day 1 live blog: Jury selected for trial
• Day 2 live blog: Prosecution sets out its case
• Day 3 live blog: Housemate speaks of killing

Coman had told him about a shirtless Ukrainian man who had been in the house, describing him as a ‘secret weapon’ whose existence he claimed the prosecution had been hiding. There was a ‘conspiracy’ to kill him, it was suggested.

He talked about being the victim of an insurance scam, involving three car crashes, as well as a real estate fraud; both of which he suggested had involved Mr Laboshin.

The defendant was said to have claimed his victim was ‘carrying a huge dagger around the house’.

Coman said he ‘should have called’ the authorities, and that if he had then the stabbing of Mr Laboshin would never have happened. Those delusions ‘fit with paranoid schizophrenia’, the doctor said.

Dr Hussain said Coman had been ‘guarded’ about discussing the murder and ‘expressed anger at being reminded about it every five minutes. He ‘dismissed’ talk of Agent 47, telling him ‘it’s just a video game, people take it too seriously’.

The defendant is currently receiving treatment at Littlemore Hospital (file image) Picture: Oxford Mail (Image: Oxford Mail)

The doctor pointed to an application for a firearms licence made by Coman in March 2020, a month before he attacked a rent collector outside where he was then living in Bedford.

In the application, Coman spoke of his need for a ‘hand gun’ to defend himself and his surprise at having survived for so long without one. He had a BB gun, he told the authorities in the application form, but suggested – confusingly – that it was like trying to ‘kill a mosquito with a tank’.

“To my mind as a psychiatrist, this was evidence that he was ill from March 2020 at least,” Dr Hussain said of the delusions expressed in the application.

Asked by defence barrister Tana Adkin KC whether the defendant might be ‘malingering’, the psychiatrist said of such individuals: “They tend to have a very different way of going about [it]. They offer symptoms to you, they watch for your reaction and usually it is quite obvious to clinicians.”

The 'golden gun' - a BB pellet gun - found by police in Eugen Coman's BMW Picture: Bedfordshire Police/Thames Valley Police (Image: Bedfordshire Police/Thames Valley Police)

Cross-examining him, prosecutor Charles Ward-Jackson suggested to Dr Hussain that the defendant had not liked it ‘at all’ when the Crown’s account that the motive for the killing was Coman’s jealousy at Mr Laboshin’s friendship with a female housemate was put to him.

“He didn’t like that at all. Perhaps because it is the truth, I suggest,” the prosecutor said.

Questioned on the point by Ms Adkin, later, the defence psychiatrist agreed that someone with ‘delusional beliefs’ could think that someone was in love with them.

“That’s a possibility; he believed Maryia [the housemate] was in love with him and Mr Laboshin was stealing her away?” Ms Adkin asked.

Mr Hussain replied: “He certainly didn’t express that to me.”

Coman, of Pinnocks Way, Oxford, denies murder. It will be for the jury to decide whether, on the balance of probabilities, he was suffering from diminished responsibility at the time of the killing. The trial continues.