Chilling face of the woman who cut little Emily’s throat
As she’s locked up for life over Mother’s Day killing in park...
CHILLING footage released yesterday shows the moment a paranoid schizophrenic was arrested after she killed schoolgirl Emily Jones – and calmly admits she has a knife in her bag.
Eltiona Skana was given a life sentence at a maximum-security hospital after grabbing the seven-year-old and slashing her throat as she rode her scooter through a park on Mother’s Day.
After the sentencing, Emily’s devastated parents demanded to know how ‘an innocent child playing in the park’ could be killed ‘in such a violent and monstrous way’.
The police bodycam video shows Skana as she is approached by officers in the park in Bolton following the random attack.
She is asked what’s in her backpack and immediately and calmly replies: ‘ID and everything.’ When the officer responds ‘ID?’ Skana says: ‘Yes... and the knife.’ Shortly after, with Skana handcuffed in the back of a police van, she tells an officer her name and address.
She is then asked to confirm what is inside her bag and replies: ‘No, no bombs, no nothing, it’s just my ID card, my mum’s ID card, there is a knife, some water, some juice... nothing.’
Emily’s father Mark says the tragedy should never have happened and has accused mental health workers of a string of failures over their handling of Skana. The 30-year-old Albanian smuggled herself into Britain in a lorry in 2014 and falsely claimed asylum, saying she was a victim of traffickers.
While Skana later admitted to doctors this had been a lie, she was allowed to remain in the UK where she was in and out of psychiatric units after a series of violent outbursts which included an attack with an iron on her own mother.
Despite regularly absconding she was allowed back into the community where a doctor switched her from regular antipsychotic injections to tablets she was relied on to take herself.
The court heard a search of her flat revealed a month’s supply of tablets which she had not taken.
On March 22, having been visited by a psychiatric nurse just once in three months, Skana bought a pack of craft knives from a pound shop near her home in Bolton and walked to the town’s Queen’s Park. That afternoon, Emily’s father had taken her there to meet her mother, solicitor Sarah Barnes, who was jogging.
The trial heard heartbreaking details of how, on seeing her around 200 yards away, Emily asked: ‘Daddy, daddy – I want to go to mum.’ Mr Jones replied ‘Of course’, at which Emily set off on her scooter towards Miss Barnes. But as the youngster rode past a bench, Skana grabbed her in a headlock and slit her throat.
Credit manager Mr Jones, 49, initially assumed Emily had fallen off her scooter and the stranger was helping her up – before realising to his horror what had happened.
As he cradled her and begged, ‘Just stay with me Emily, stay with me’, a witness chased after Skana and pinned her to the ground while dialling 999. He said the killer was ‘rambling’ about ‘the English’ and the Home Office, and claimed Emily had ‘tried to kill me’.
Emily was flown to Salford Royal Hospital by air ambulance, but could not be saved.
Her parents, who are separated, said she was ‘the beat of our hearts, the spring in our steps and the reason we got up every morning’.
‘Emily was our beautiful, spirited little girl, a bundle of energy with an infectious personality,’ they added. ‘Emily loved life and had not a care in the world.’ They added: ‘We want people to understand this should not have happened.
‘There is a knife, some water, some juice’ ‘She was the beat of our hearts’
How can an innocent child playing in the park be killed in such a violent and monstrous way?’
Skana stood trial for murder, but last week psychiatrists said she could not have comprehended the consequences of her actions due to her paranoid schizophrenia.
As a result, prosecutors accepted her guilty plea for manslaughter by diminished responsibility.
She took part in previous hearings by video link from Rampton Hospital in Nottinghamshire.
However, judge Mr Justice Wall ordered she be brought to Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester for sentencing so Emily’s parents could see her face to face.
Describing the case as ‘chilling’, he imposed a life sentence with a minimum of eight years, adding it may never be safe to release her from maximum-security Rampton.
The NHS trust responsible for Skana’s care insisted there were ‘no markers’ via which the tragedy could have been ‘foreseen’.