Labourer beat pensioner to death as she dialled 999
A LITHUANIAN has admitted killing a pensioner who lived alone in a £2million remote country home before setting her battered body alight.
Tautvydas Narbutas, 24, denied murdering widow Albertina Choules, 81, who was hit around the head, but the prosecution accepted a guilty plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter.
At the opening of an inquest last year, a coroner was told how the emergency call handler who took a call from Mrs Choules heard the voice of a man before the line was suddenly disconnected.
Yesterday a court heard that Narbutas was suffering from a psychotic disorder and that his responsibility for the crime was ‘severely diminished’.
The labourer had also faced two charges of attempted grievous bodily harm against two police officers responding to Mrs Choules’ 999 call on July 6 last year but they were dropped after he admitted affray.
The pensioner lived without electricity and would take care of the wildlife around her home near Marlow, Buckinghamshire.
Villagers were free to visit her estate as part of a Buddhist trail she created with her husband Michael, a fellow Buddhist convert, who died in 2004 after battling cancer. At the time of her death locals feared that her kindhearted nature may have left her vulnerable to a drifter who camped nearby. At last year’s inquest Detective Inspector Andy Shearwood, of Thames Valley Police, said officers arrested a man outside the house next to a fire. He added: ‘The fire was put out and it was clear that the body of a female was in the fire.’ After more than a year in cus- tody awaiting trial, Narbutas appeared via videolink from Woodhill prison and spoke only to enter his pleas through an interpreter. He told Reading Crown Court: ‘Not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter.’ It comes after a psychiatrist, instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service, accepted that Narb- utas’ responsibility for the crime was ‘severely diminished’.
Prosecutor Alan Blake said yesterday: ‘We’ve carefully reviewed all the evidence and in particular the medical evidence. The mental abnormality is identified as arising from a psychotic disorder.’
He said his team met Mrs Choules’ family on Monday before agreeing to accept the pleas.
Judge Johannah Cutts remanded Narbutas in custody for more medical evidence to be gathered before sentencing on October 3.
She said: ‘I should make clear a consideration at the sentencing hearing will be dangerousness. I would ask the experts to address that question.
‘What is likely to be a concern to the sentencing judge is whether this is likely to happen again.’
Narbutas is understood to have arrived in the UK with his girlfriend last June and was intending to stay with an uncle.
A statement from Mrs Choules’ family described her as an ‘incredibly special’ woman who lived a ‘simple, self- sufficient way of life with no electricity, television or washing machine’.
They added that she was ‘completely selfless’ and gave fruit and vegetables to friends and family.