Man found guilty of attempting to murder his girlfriend’s son
A MAN diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia who stabbed his girlfriend’s son 18 times has been found guilty of attempted murder and sent to a secure psychiatric hospital.
Robert Jones, 46, blamed voices in his head telling him to carry out the “frenzied” attack on Andrew Burvill, 35, who was asleep at the time.
Mr Burvill was found blood-soaked “like something from a horror film” and paramedics ran out of dressings to treat his severe wounds.
Prosecutor Patrick Harrington said: “Jones took a kitchen knife and went to a bedroom where Mr Burvill was sleeping.
“His principal target was his head but he was also stabbed to the back of the neck.”
Mr Burvill spent 10 weeks in hospital and still suffers from flashbacks and nightmares.
He told the court: “He just kept on stabbing and stabbing, he was like a maniac trying to kill me.
“It was a shock, there were no motives, there was no reason.”
Photographs of Mr Burvill’s injuries were so graphic they had to be censored before being shown to the jury.
Jones said he was “off his face” after his medication for paranoid schizophrenia was changed.
He told police: “I heard voices for 10 minutes before getting the knife from the kitchen. They were saying: ‘Kill him.’”
Jones told the court he loved Mr Burvill like a son and the pair were close friends. But he was convinced his girlfriend Gaynor Burvill and her family were trying to poison him.
He told the court: “I felt psychotic and angry. I couldn’t control my thoughts, I was delusional.
“As I was doing it, I realised it was wrong but I just couldn’t stop myself.”
The court heard Jones’ face was “expressionless and blank” during the savage attack on March 21.
Two psychiatric nurses stood with him in the dock as he gave evidence at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court.
Jones’ defence lawyers claimed he lacked the specific intent to commit the offence of attempted murder because of his mental illness.
But the jury took less than an hour to convict him.
Jones, of Merthyr Tydfil, was given a secure hospital order under the Mental Health Act.
Judge Nicholas Lavender imposed a Section 41 restriction which will detain Jones indefinitely for public safety.