A judge has criticised what she described as “an abject and frankly quite unforgivable systems failure” as she jailed a man with mental issues for the manslaughter of his grandmother as there was no place available for him in the Central Mental Hospital.Judge Sinéad Behan said it was clear from several reports that Brian Nnadi Ogbo (39) suffered from complex mental health issues including paranoid schizophrenia and he needed psychiatric care.However, the Central Mental Hospital lacked the capacity to accept him.She noted he had twice attempted to take his own life in 2017 before he came to Ireland from Nigeria. She said what added to the tragedy was the fact that his mother, Ruby, was trying to access mental health services when he killed his grandmother, Stella Ejiatu Nnadi.“This is haunting in the context of what was to unfold – a loss of life. It could perhaps have been prevented if the necessary psychiatric intervention had occurred. It is a system failure,” said the judge as she sentenced Ogbo to five years in jail with 18 months suspended.“At the end of the day the reality is that this man needs inpatient forensic care, and it is not forthcoming. There seems to be no capacity from the Central Mental Hospital or from the National Forensic Mental Health Service.”Ogbo had previously pleaded guilty last November at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to the unlawful killing of Stella Ejiatu Nnadi at Garrydhu Drive, Kilmoney Road, Carrigaline, on February 25th, 2025, when he dragged her down the stairs in a fit of rage.Det Garda Tom Delaney had told the court Ogbo got into a row with his mother, Ruby Ogbo, on February 23rd, 2025, after she discovered he had eaten all the food in the house. She threatened to cut off the wifi and he attacked her. She ran to a neighbour to raise the alarm.Ogbo then went upstairs and dragged his grandmother from the bathroom and down the stairs headfirst as his mother was calling the emergency services and telling them her son was having a mental breakdown and had threatened to kill her, his sisters and grandmother. Gardaí arrived at the scene and arrested Ogbo, who was brought to Cork University Hospital (CUH) and committed under the Mental Health Act. He was later discharged and given a letter to attend on a voluntary basis.Stella Nnadi was shaken and did not go to hospital, but two days later Ruby Ogbo returned home to find her unresponsive. She was rushed by ambulance to CUH where a scan showed a bleed on the brain. She failed to regain consciousness and died later that day.State Pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers carried out a postmortem on Nnadi and found she died from blunt-force trauma to the head as a result of being pulled down the stairs with bruising to her right arm, which supported Ogbo’s account of pulling her down the stairs by the arm.Defence counsel Jane Hyland said the accused’s mother had already suffered one tragedy in losing her mother and was anxious to avoid a second tragedy of seeing her son going to jail and was willing to ensure he takes his medication and keeps all medical appointments.She said Ruby believed that her son’s condition had stabilised in recent months while Ogbo himself had expressed remorse for his actions, saying how “sad and sorry he was for what happened to his grandmother, and he never wanted anything like that to happen again”.However, she said that Health Service Executive community mental services in Cork were unable to provide any supports to Ogbo as he was on a waiting list for the Central Mental Hospital in Portrane in Dublin. However, they were unable to accommodate him due to a long waiting list for admission.The judge noted that a probation report found that Ogbo was at a high risk of offending but she was conscious that she had a duty to be both fair to the accused and to protect society. However, in the absence of any places in the CMH, she had no option but to sentence him to jail.She noted the Director of Public Prosecutions had deemed Ogbo’s culpability to be in the median range, suggesting a prison sentence of between four and 10 years and fixed a headline sentence of nine years but, taking account of his mental illness, she would reduce this to one of five years.Taking into account mitigating factors such as Ogbo’s guilty plea and his lack of previous convictions, she suspended the final 18 months on condition he would engage with mental health services upon his release, and she backdated it to February 27th, 2025, when he first went into custody.