Man ‘slit his grandma’s throat’ after drinking tea together

A man slit his grandmother’s throat in her care home and then told a staff member, “I’m sorry, I’ve just killed my nan”, according to prosecutors.

Antony Jennings, 33, of Ilford, east London, allegedly killed dementia sufferer Ruby Wilson, 94, because he believed she “was dead anyway”, reports the BBC.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard that following the attack, at Buckhurst Hill Care Home, in Essex, Jennings told a police officer: “I just wanted to get that done for ages to be honest with you, mate.”

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He later added: “I don’t want her to suffer any more and she’s not in pain any more. She doesn’t know who anyone is. She is in agony. She was dead anyway. She was gone as far as I was concerned.”

Prosecutor Stephen Rose told the jury that a nurse had seen “Jennings and Wilson meeting and drinking tea together” in the care home lounge shortly before the alleged killing, on 29 November last year.

“Wilson appeared to be very pleased to see her grandson,” Rose said.

The court heard they then went to her room. A few minutes later, a psychiatric nurse “felt a tap on her arm”.

Rose continued: “It was Jennings. He said, ‘I'm sorry...I just killed my nan’, to which [the nurse] reacted, ‘You're joking’. He replied, ‘I'm not joking.’”

Police “recovered a Jansport backpack from the scene containing one bread knife and one kitchen knife measuring 8cm”, the BBC reports.

A post-mortem examination of the dead woman “gave the provisional cause of death as an incised wound to the neck”, says The Sun.

The court heard that Jennings was later examined by three consultant psychiatrists, “who all agreed on a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, including features of psychosis, moments of paranoia and delusions”, reports Metro.

Dorian Lovell-Pank, representing Jennings, said: “Some time before this happened, he had been seriously mentally ill.

“That of course is not an excuse for what he did, as you have heard. But it is an explanation for what he did.”

Jennings denies murdering his grandmother but has admitted the lesser charge of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. The trial continues.