Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

The man ac­cused of killing Gabriel­la Du Bar­ry at her Fyz­abad home last Thurs­day has been sent for a psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion at the St Ann’s Psy­chi­atric Hos­pi­tal.

Vishal Bir­ju, a PH dri­ver of Pep­per Vil­lage, Fyz­abad, ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Ava Van­den­berg-Bai­ley in the Siparia Mag­is­trates' Court this morn­ing.

Du Bar­ry was mur­dered on Jan­u­ary 9

Bir­ju, 30 wear­ing a blue shirt, jeans and a white pair of sneak­ers, con­tin­u­al­ly kept rock­ing from front to back as he wait­ed for his mat­ter to be heard.

This prompt­ed court pros­e­cu­tor Starr Ja­cob to ask why he was shak­ing.

His at­tor­ney, Naz­i­ma Ali, said he was in need of a psy­cho­log­i­cal as­sess­ment. She said he re­quired med­ica­tion and a prop­er med­ical ex­am­i­na­tion.

Ja­cob con­sult­ed with the com­plainant Cpl Har­riper­sad. She told Mag­is­trate Van­den­berg-Bai­ley that Bir­ju showed no signs of "med­ical ca­pa­bil­i­ties" dur­ing his in­car­cer­a­tion.

"He was quite co­her­ent dur­ing the en­quiries," she added.

How­ev­er, she said the pros­e­cu­tion had no prob­lems with Bir­ju un­der­go­ing a med­ical ex­am­i­na­tion.

Van­den­berg-Bai­ley or­dered Bir­ju to be tak­en for an as­sess­ment at the St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal.

He was or­dered to reap­pear in court on Jan­u­ary 28.

Du Bar­ry was the moth­er of a sev­en-year-old boy.

Po­lice said be­fore she was mur­dered she had re­port­ed do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in­ci­dents to the Fyz­abad po­lice.

Gabriel­la Du Bar­ry was cre­mat­ed last Sun­day.