A paranoid schizophrenic who stabbed his flatmate to death and chopped off the man’s penis should not have been released from a mental hospital, a court heard today.
Jeffrey Barry, 56, went to two bars and consumed a litre of rum before he stabbed his flatmate Kamil Ahmed 25 times at their home in Bristol.
CCTV footage at the flats from the night of Ahmed’s killing captured Barry leaving the flat in the early evening on July 6, 2016.
Jeffrey Barry (bald, centre) is sketched sitting in the dock at Bristol Crown Court yesterday
He spent several hours drinking at Charlie’s Bar in the Knowle area of the city and Long Bar in Old Market before returning to the flat just before midnight.
Footage captured him leaving the flat at 1am, wearing just his underpants, and making a telephone call in the hallway.
He ended the call at 1.26am, and next appeared on CCTV footage three minutes later, emerging from his flat shirtless but wearing trousers with a knife in his pocket.
Having knocked on Mr Ahmed’s door, he then knocked on another housemate’s door, before knocking again at Mr Ahmed’s.
When the Kurdish refugee opened his door Barry went in – emerging 42 minutes later with blood visible all over his clothes.
He then walked back down to the hall, and at 2.15am dialled 999 and told the operator he had killed Mr Ahmed.
Barry stabbed his flatmate at the multi-occupancy house in Bristol for adults who need support
The schizophrenic phoned a psychiatric nurse at the time and told her he had drunk a litre of rum and felt like punching an ‘Asian’ person in his flats.
Barry earlier told a psychiatrist he could hear the devil’s voice telling him: ‘Kamil must die, he is a very bad man.’
Barry, who is on trial at Bristol Crown Court, denies murder but admits manslaughter by diminished responsibility.
He had been arrested and sectioned under the Mental Health Act a month earlier after displaying ‘bizarre’, over-sexualised behaviour, including performing a sex act naked in communal areas.
But the Mental Health Tribunal decided that Barry was fit to be discharged – despite talking about killing Mr Ahmed.
Consultant psychiatrist Dr Roger Thomas said: ‘The Mental Health Tribunal is a court of law. My clinical view is he should not have been discharged by the Mental Health Tribunal.’
The case continues.
Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.