This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21498528
The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
Version 0 | Version 1 |
---|---|
Tenerife beheading: Murder suspect 'haunted by voices' | |
(about 1 hour later) | |
A man accused of murdering a British grandmother in Tenerife has told a Spanish court he has no memory of having lived on the Canary Island. | |
Bulgarian Deyan Deyanov, 29, said he is haunted by voices that "direct how I act", and admitted having taken crack cocaine and LSD before his arrest. | |
Jennifer Mills-Westley, 60, who was a retired council worker from Norwich, was stabbed repeatedly and decapitated in a Los Cristianos shop in May 2011. | |
Mr Deyanov has denied the murder. | Mr Deyanov has denied the murder. |
Ms Mills-Westley's two daughters, Sarah and Samantha Mills-Westley, were in court for the first day of Mr Deyanov's trial. | |
Prosecutor Angel Garcia Rodriguez told the provincial court in the island's capital Santa Cruz that Mr Deyanov had approached Ms Mills-Westley before "attacking and striking her repeatedly with a knife in her back and neck until she was completely decapitated". | |
'Justice done' | |
The court was shown CCTV footage of the attack, which took place inside a Chinese-owned supermarket on Avenida Juan Carlos I. | |
The nine members of the jury were also shown two 22cm-long knives thought to have been used in the attack, one of which was bent and covered in blood. | |
Speaking in court, Sarah Mills-Westley, from Norwich, said her mother, a grandmother-of-five, had been concerned about safety on the island in the months before her death. | |
The 43-year-old from Norwich, said: "It was nothing specific but she was increasingly concerned that Tenerife was not as safe as when we used to visit 30 years ago. | |
"All I want to see is justice done for my mum." | "All I want to see is justice done for my mum." |
Jennifer Mills-Westley had been living in Tenerife after retiring from her job as a road safety officer with Norfolk County Council. | |
Mr Deyanov's lawyer, Francisco Beltran, insisted his client had "committed no crime" and claimed he had been a "sick man" living without diagnosis or treatment for acute schizophrenia. | |
'Kill, fight, hit, pray' | |
Answering questions in Bulgarian via an interpreter, Mr Deyanov said voices had told him he was "an angel of Jesus Christ who is going to create a new Jerusalem". | |
"They direct how I act, sometimes they say kill, fight, hit, pray," he added. | "They direct how I act, sometimes they say kill, fight, hit, pray," he added. |
Mr Deyanov insisted he did not recognise himself in the CCTV footage of the stabbing and likened it to watching "a montage, a film". | |
He admitted he had used crack cocaine and LSD before his arrest, but said he had no memory of having lived in Tenerife. | |
He also could not recall being taken to Tenerife from a psychiatric unit in Seville, Spain, or having lived in Wales, where he was sectioned in 2010 under the Mental Health Act at Glan Clwyd Hospital. | |
The jury also heard evidence from witness Davide Balsamo, an Italian who has lived in Tenerife for five years. | |
He said: "I came out of the shop and suddenly I saw him [Deyanov] come off the kerb, completely covered in blood. | |
"I ran up to him and hit him with all my strength using my motorcycle helmet and knocked him silly." | |
Mr Garcia Rodriguez is seeking a 20-year jail term, to be served in a secure psychiatric unit. | |
The trial continues. | The trial continues. |