A JURY has retired to begin determining the fate of Chadley Sheridan, accused of murder over the strangulation death of a 16-year-old boy at Charlestown last year.
Mr Sheridan, 25, does not deny killing the teenager in an unprovoked attack while he was in bed at a unit on Charlestown Road on the night of March 15, 2021.
But he has pleaded not guilty to murder and raised a defence of mental health impairment, claiming he did not know what he was doing was wrong because he was suffering from psychosis.
There is no dispute that Mr Sheridan was psychotic at the time of the killing; both medical experts agree he was experiencing auditory hallucinations and bizarre delusions.
But the central issue for the jury to determine is what caused Mr Sheridan to become psychotic.
Was his psychosis caused solely by using drugs, particularly ice. Or, as the defence has claimed, was it caused by an underlying chronic disorder that was not temporary and not caused solely by using drugs.
