‘Very sick’ man to be held without limit of time for killing mother in frenzied cricket bat attack
A man who beat his mother to death with a cricket bat has been locked up in hospital indefinitely.
Shanil Patel, 32, attacked 62-year-old retired hospital worker Hansa Patel (pictured) in the living room of their home in Greenford, west London.
Patel, who has had paranoid schizophrenia since 2009, then wandered the streets until he was arrested the following morning, the Old Bailey heard.
Following a trial of facts, a jury found Patel did the acts that led to his mother’s death.
The court heard he had been deemed unfit to stand trial.
On Thursday, Patel was handed a hospital order without limit of time.
The court heard that he remains unwell and poses a serious risk to the public.
Giving evidence, Dr Marc Jeanneret said Patel has a history of self-harm, having set himself alight when hearing voices, jumped off a bridge into water, and cut himself.
He had also shown “low-level aggression” to members of his family and others before the killing.
Judge Anthony Leonard QC said Patel inflicted “terrible injuries” on his mother in what could only be described as a “frenzied attack”.
In light of psychiatric reports, the judge found that Patel remains “very sick” and may never be well enough to leave hospital.
He added that a hospital order was necessary because of the “nature of the offence” and the risk to the public.
Previously, prosecutor Lisa Wilding QC said Patel’s “kind and loving” mother had recently retired from a job at Ealing Hospital to help care for him.
On the afternoon of November 25 last year, she was repeatedly hit over the head with a cricket bat by her son as her husband took a nap upstairs.
Patel’s illness had been managed by medication but, that day, something appeared to have “triggered” the sustained and violent assault, Ms Wilding said.
The prosecutor said: “Shanil’s illness would come in ebbs and flows but he had found the first lockdown hard, although he seemed to be coping better with the second.
“He suffered from hallucinations that had previously told him to hurt people but Shanil had been able to control them.”
The court heard that Patel last had contact with mental health services shortly before lockdown.
The defendant, who has a bed in a medium-secure mental health unit, did not attend the Old Bailey hearing.
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