Inquiry into mentally ill man’s killing of best friend

An investigation has been launched into how a patient was allowed to walk out of a psychiatric hospital two days before brutally killing his best friend, who he believed was the Devil.

David Reid had told family members and professionals about his delusions that “demons” were trying to harm him in the days before he stabbed Mark Johnston more than 120 times in a bloodbath.

He was admitted to Royal Cornhill Hospital in Aberdeen but, despite the warnings, doctors decided the 46-year-old wasn’t ill enough to be detained for urgent treatment.

He phoned his sister less than 48 hours after being discharged to confess that he had stabbed his friend to death in his flat in bro ugh ty Ferry, after “shredding” his jugular vein with a kitchen knife.

Reid was acquitted of murder at the High Court in Livingston last week after the prosecution accepted that he was “not criminally responsible for his actions by reason of mental disorder”.

The court heard he answered the door to police who arrived at his flat in Nursery Road, Broughty Ferry, on 20 October last year covered in blood.

Mr Johnston was lying dead in a large pool of blood on the living room floor with “in excess of 120 stab wounds” all over his body.

Reid told police: “I feel terrible. The Devil told me I had two hours to stab him. I got a knife from the kitchen and sat there. “