Doctor, 29, caged for life for beating ‘controlling’ mum, 51, to death with a chisel because he ‘couldn’t take any more’

A RAGING doctor battered his controlling mum to death with a chisel when he finally snapped after being raised in “almost third-world conditions”.

Declan O’Neill, 29 was forced to sleep on a mattress with no bathroom by mum Anne, 51, during years of “relentless emotional violence”.

The doctor snapped and bludgeoned her to death with a chisel as she desperately screamed “leave me alone, Declan” and “somebody help me”.

Anne was discovered face-down in a bloodbath at her parents’ home in Belfast – with O’Neill chillingly telling cops: “I didn’t mean to, I just couldn’t take any more.”

Police later found a gruesome haul of items covered in his mum’s blood – including a rubber face mask, metal chisel, gloves and shoes.

O’Neill has now been caged for life after he admitted murdering Anne on October 21, 2017.

‘OUR LIVES WERE DESTROYED’

His relatives begged the judge to show mercy as retired nurse Anne had been a “controlling personality” who had driven her son “beyond his limits”.

The court was told her children grew up in an atmosphere of “intimidation and bullying” at the family home, which had little furniture.

O’Neill’s sister explained how her mother had on one occasion “held me by the throat against a wall” and “hit me with a brush”.

She also said they had suffered a lifetime of their mother calling them names and “being horrible” and it had “a profound effect”.

The sister added: “I always knew the way she treated us was not normal.

“Our whole childhood and right into our adult lives was destroyed.”

GRUESOME MURDER

The court was told O’Neill wasn’t allowed any friends when he was a child and that even when he grew up, Anne would bombard him with 15 calls a day while he was at work.

She was also said to have caused him to spiral into a mountain of debt after repeatedly taking cash from him.

On October 21, 2017, O’Neill went to his grandparents’ home at between 6am and 7am and battered his mum with the chisel while wearing a Halloween mask.

Emergency crews were scrambled after horrified neighbours heard Anne’s desperate screams but she couldn’t be saved and was pronounced dead at 7.50am.

‘I COULDN’T TAKE ANYMORE’

A post-mortem found she suffered skull fractures and a bleed on the brain, with “copious amounts of blood”, Anne’s hair and two teeth discovered at the scene.

Pathologist Professor Jack Crane said she was hit repeatedly with a heavy blunt object and the back of her head slammed against tiled steps.

O’Neill at first denied any wrong-doing but finally confessed in his 14th police interview, telling officers: “I didn’t mean to. I just couldn’t take anymore.

“You don’t know what it’s like every day – thousands of pounds of debts in my name.

“[She] keeps taking money off me.”

A judge will rule on the conditions of O’Neill’s sentence next Thursday.