Mentally ill man killed his father

A PARANOID schizophrenic stabbed his father to death while free to walk the streets as part of the Government's care in the community policy, an Old Bailey judge was told yesterday.

Nigel Sweeney, for the prosecution, said Rodney Rollins, 24, was staying in a half-way house for people with severe mental problems when he carried out the attack.

It occurred on the day he appeared before Tottenham magistrates in north London, charged with hurling a brick through the window of his father's house. He was bailed on condition he stayed away from the house in Tottenham.

'He was released at 10.30am, but while at the magistrates' court he had already decided he was going to kill his father,' Mr Sweeney said. Rollins climbed in through a window and attacked his father, Joseph, 60, in his bedroom, stabbing him twice in the neck and chest with a kitchen knife. He was arrested after running into a hospital and insisting he needed treatment.

Judge Brian Smedley ordered that Rollins, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, be held in a secure hospital indefinitely.