Man killed own mother af ter his two babies died
Woman stabbed to death in rural cottage and partner attacked
A MAN stabbed his mother to death because he was struggling to cope with the loss of his two children, a court heard yesterday.
James Standing plunged a knife into Beverley Bliss’s neck at her rural cottage just days before Christmas last year.
The 35-year-old then sat drinking tea before turning on his mother’s partner, Gavin Robertson, who had been sleeping during the initial attack.
The High Court in Glasgow heard that former forestry worker Standing had been suffering from an ‘abnormality of the mind’ at the time of the attack.
His five-week-old son Beck had died in February 2015 and his daughter, Lottie, was stillborn at 14 weeks on December 6 last year, leading to the collapse of his relationship with his former partner, Kerry Clark.
Standing appeared in court yesterday facing a murder charge, but prosecutors accepted his guilty plea to the reduced charge of culpable homicide on the basis of his diminished responsibility.
The court heard that on December 14 last year, a ‘very distressed’ Standing, Miss Clark and other family buried Lottie.
He later visited his doctor and said he was struggling to come to terms with the loss of the baby. A week later – the day before the killing – Standing had been at Miss Clark’s home before returning to his mother’s cottage in Carrutherstown, near Dumfries.
In the hours that followed, he violently turned on his 52-year-old mother repeatedly stabbing her with a knife and punching her. Prosecutor Shirley McKenna said that the precise detail of the killing was unknown, but in a later meeting with psychiatrists, Standing admitted feeling ‘hatred’ towards his mother.
Miss McKenna said: ‘He described making a plan to act out on his thoughts.
‘He described taking a knife from Kerry Clark’s and travelling by bus to his mother’s house.’
Standing later admitted to police that he had attacked Miss Bliss, with ‘the final blow directed to her throat’.
Miss McKenna said: ‘He then described sitting in the kitchen for a few hours smoking and drinking tea.’
Miss Bliss’s partner had been asleep during the killing.
But Mr Robertson awoke to find Standing at the side of his bed ‘like a man possessed’.
Mr Robertson tried to calm him, but Standing stabbed him. He managed to flee wearing only boxer shorts and hid from Standing in a nearby garden.
Meanwhile, a blood-soaked Standing was spotted walking near the house and initially told passers-by that there had ‘been a crash’.
He was taken to hospital while police arrived at his mother’s home.
Officers found Miss Bliss’s body in the kitchen with the knife still in her neck.
A report compiled in April by a doctor at the State Hospital at Carstairs, Lanarkshire, stated that Standing had suffered ‘several stressful events’.
These included the loss of two children and his relationship breaking down.
Standing had also been taking drugs last year and had developed ‘delusional beliefs’.
He had become ‘increasingly angry’ towards his mother, resulting in the killing.
Judge Lord Beckett ordered Standing to remain at the State Hospital at Carstairs on an interim compulsion order.
He will return to court for sentencing in September.
‘Like a man possessed’