‘Murder-bid man should not have gone to jail’

A MAN who was jailed for life 15 years ago for a savage attempted murder was mentally ill and should not have gone to prison, judges have ruled.

Matthew Kitchener, now 34, from Porthcawl, attacked victim Helen John-Hall on the doorstep of her Wellfield Avenue home in the town on his 20th birthday in August 2002.

She was stabbed in the neck and strangled, but survived.

He confessed to a friend, who called the police, and Kitchener pleaded guilty to attempted murder at Cardiff Crown Court.

He has been locked away ever since, first in a series of young offenders’ institutions and prisons, then at psychiatric hospitals.

And yesterday, after an appeal by his lawyers, three senior judges said he should never have been sent to jail in the first place.

Lord Justice Flaux said Kitchener had served five years in 2007 and was being considered for a move to an open prison when mental health concerns arose.

He was assessed and “scored very highly” on a psychopathy test, resulting in him being moved to more secure conditions.

Kitchener, formerly of Philadelphia Road, was sectioned and has since then been confined to various secure mental hospitals, where he is receiving treatment.

Assessment of the offender, who now uses the name Jude Armel, had resulted in a diagnosis of a “psychopathic disorder”.

Allowing his appeal, the judge, sitting with Mr Justice Blake and Mr Justice William Davis, replaced the life term with a mental health order, meaning he will be detained and treated in a mental hospital until experts are convinced he is not a danger.