‘Acutely psychotic’ man killed 87-year-old woman in her home

A man with paranoid schizophrenia who was a failed asylum seeker killed an 87-year-old woman who let him live in her North Yorkshire home, a court has heard.

Shahin Darvish-Narenjbon, 34, was taken in by Brenda Blainey when she met him in a Leeds restaurant.

He went to live with her in the village of Thornton-le-Dale, where she treated him like a grandson, Leeds Crown Court heard.

But on January 5 last year, the Iranian national strangled and stabbed Mrs Blainey.

Prosecutor Nicholas Lumley KC described how Mrs Blainey was placing an order with the village shop when the phone call went dead.

She could not be contacted despite 12 calls by the concerned shopkeeper.

Mr Lumley said the assumption is that this is when the attack on her began.

He said Darvish-Narenjbon was born in Tehran but had been in the UK since he was 15, although he lived for some time in the US, where he spent time in a psychiatric unit.

Mr Lumley said the defendant’s permission to remain in the UK expired in 2015, and his application for asylum was unsuccessful as was his appeal against the refusal to allow him to stay.

The prosecutor said DarvishNarenjbon met Mrs Blainey at Carluccio’s restaurant in 2013 and she offered him a room in her home where she “provided him with food and other home comforts as he was studying in Leeds”.

He said their friendship was characterised as a “grandma-grandson relationship” and they spoke regularly while he was away studying.

Mrs Blainey even attended his masters degree graduation and provided him with a study and a car.

Mr Lumley said: “Towards the end of her life, Mrs Blainey was becoming increasingly frail and her memory was failing but she managed to live independently.”

He said no-one but the defendant, who had a severe mental illness, knows what happened to her on January 5.

The prosecutor said: “Mrs Blainey’s family continue to wonder what truly became of her and why she was killed.”

He said the defendant told police he had been asleep upstairs and came down to find her in a pool of blood in the kitchen.

Darvish-Narenjbon, formerly of Tinshill Lane, Cookridge, Leeds, appeared in court by videolink from Rampton high security special hospital, in Nottinghamshire, wearing a grey sweatshirt.

Members of Mrs Blainey’s family watched in court as forensic psychiatrist James Stoddart told the judge the defendant was “acutely psychotic” and had paranoid schizophrenia.

The court heard that, under current rules, he will be deported if he is ever released from secure hospital or prison.

Darvish-Narenjbon denied murder but admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at an earlier hearing, which was accepted by the prosecution.

Judge Rodney Jameson KC said he will sentence him tomorrow at 11am.