I THOUGHT SHE WAS A ROBOT
Chilling confession of ‘extremely troubled’ teen who smothered and stabbed 7-year-old Katie in delusional attack... despite a year of warnings over her disturbed and psychotic state
AN ‘extremely troubled’ teenager who had been under the care of mental health experts for a year killed a girl of seven who she believed was a ‘robot,’ a court heard yesterday.
The 15-year-old took Katie Rough to a playing field after school, suffocated her with a gloved hand, slit her throat and sliced open her stomach to see if she was ‘real’ before calling 999.
Minutes after the killing, the victim’s mother Alison also rang 999 because she was worried her daughter was missing.
She and her husband arrived just after a police officer, who was trying to revive the little girl with chest compressions. Mrs Rough began to scream and had to be led away from the harrowing scene.
A judge heard the shocking details of the ‘deeply disturbing’ killing in York last January and how the authorities failed to recognise the threat posed by the girl, who turned 16 on Sunday. It was revealed that:
The teenager had been under the care of the local Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services a year before the crime,
A full psychiatric assessment had been requested but never carried out,
Weeks before the killing, the ‘disturbed’ and suicidal teenager was given antidepressants and psychosis was ‘flagged up’ for further investigations,
Only 48 hours before the killing she posted a picture on Instagram crying, with deep cuts to her arms caused by pencil sharpener blades, with the caption ‘mentally seriously not ok’,
She had confessed to school counsellors and a friend she believed Katie’s family ‘may not be human and controlled by a higher and hostile force’,
Police discovered the girl also planned to kill Alison Rough and was carrying a cut-up piece of paper with drawings she had made of stick men in ‘poses depicting killing and death’,
In April, when mental health funding was in the news, the victim’s sister Bethany tweeted: ‘All this talk about helping people with mental health. I hope they do! It’s come too late for my family but hopefully it can help others.’
Yesterday the teenage killer, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. She has been described as ‘selectively mute’ and said nothing throughout the hearing at Leeds Crown Court.
She entered her plea by writing her initials on paper via a video link in court and in the presence of her solicitor.
The Crown accepted the plea and dropped the murder charge because of the psychiatric evidence.
Nicholas Johnson, QC, defending, told the court the teenager had mental health problems of ‘increasing severity’ during the year before this ‘terrible and devastating tragedy’.
A psychiatrist has since diagnosed her as suffering from a ‘schizo-type personality disorder’. Mr Johnson said ‘she was driven by the irrational belief’ that Katie ‘may not be human and needed proof of this’.
The killer was known to Katie and took her to a playing field in York on the afternoon of Monday, January 9.
Graham Reeds, QC, prosecuting, said a local resident walking her dogs at 4.20pm saw both girls lying on the grass and the older girl was on top of Katie. Both ‘got up’ as she approached and Katie appeared unharmed and not in distress.
But 15 minutes later Peter Mills, a resident of nearby Alness Drive, found the teenager distressed, covered in mud and with a bloodstained hand. He thought she had been the victim of a serious attack. As he approached the teenager she was on the phone to police, telling the operator the girl was dead.
The teenager then told Mr Mills’s wife that the girl was on a nearby field. Mr Mills found the youngster ‘ lying on her back’ with her face ‘covered in blood.’ There was no pulse and she made no response.
Four minutes after the teenager finished her call, Katie’s mother dialled 999. Police connected the two calls and directed Mrs Rough, then 38, to Alness Drive.
A police officer arrived moments before Mrs Rough and her husband and Katie’s father Paul Rough, then 34, and was doing chest compressions in a vain attempt to resuscitate her.
When paramedics arrived a second wound between Katie’s sternum and stomach was found.
Katie was taken to York Hospital but she was declared dead shortly afterwards. The teenager was arrested and handed
‘Developed an interest in the macabre’
over a Stanley knife and blades taken from her grandmother’s kitchen days earlier. A green bloodstained glove was also found. A post mortem examination revealed Katie did not die from the 6cm-deep neck wound or the 20cm-long one across her torso.
She had first been suffocated by the teenager holding a gloved hand over her mouth.
Police later recovered a Lion King Simba doll from the teenager’s bedroom with its ears cut off and a slash across the stomach.
It was an indication of significant mental health problems – described by one psychiatrist as the most complex she has come across in 20 years practice. The court heard these issues first surfaced in Christmas 2015 when the teenager began self-harming.
She was referred to York’s adolescent mental health term at the end of 2015 or early 2016 and remained under their care until the killing.
During 2016 the teenager ran away from home several times and did so for a final time days before the killing.
Psychiatrist Dr Barry Chipchase, who reviewed the case for the defence, said that by March 2016 there were reports of the teenager’s ‘disturbed thinking’.
Mr Reads said: ‘The defendant has been examined by forensic consultant psychiatrists and psychologists. Between February and May 2017, Dr Chipchase spent approximately five hours with her. He reported that it’s very difficult to engage with her.
‘His report is she appeared to be reasonably content at home and was doing well at school until the start of 2016. She
lost most of her friendship group, she developed an interest in the macabre and started harming herself with a blade and reported being very upset and having suicidal thoughts.
‘His report finds evidence of disturbed thinking but no evidence of psychosis. She was having thoughts that other people weren’t human and they were robots.’
Mr Reeds said the teenager had problems in school, where she was bullied. However, she did talk about some of her problems to school counsellors.
And she received counselling by the mental health team, but not a full psychiatric assessment even when prescribed drugs for ‘depression and anxiety’ in December 2016.
A friend of the teenager told police she was ‘nice but weird’ and talked a lot about death. The friend said the teenager ‘ had dreams about killing people’ and she had ‘ bad thoughts’ about Katie’s family.
In posting a shocking self-harm Instagram photo 48 hours before the crime the girl was said to be ‘clearly crying out for help and support’.
Mr Justice Soole adjourned sen- tence until 20 July so that he could obtain further psychiatric information. The court heard Dr Chipchase believed the teenager posed a ‘ high risk of causing serious harm’.
She was remanded into youth custody. Katie’s family are expected to release a statement after sentencing.
Young mental health outpatients in York are dealt with by the Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Foundation Trust.
A spokesman declined to comment while the case was still going on.