BROWN:MENTALLY ILL MAN SMASHED GLASS COFFEE TABLE OVER STEPDAD’S HEAD

A mentally ill man who smashed a glass coffee table over his stepfather’s head in the belief he was concealing a win at the bookies was today (mon) sent to a secure psychiatric unit for treatment.

Anthony Brown, 37, thought Samuel Murrain had pocketed a small fortune at a betting shop when he battered him unconscious.

Brown stormed out after the attack telling his mother that he would ‘kill’ police if they were called, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

He was later diagnosed with a schizophrenic type illness by doctors and posed a danger to members of the public.

Michelle Fawcett, prosecuting, said Mr Murrain had been the partner of Brown’s mother, Mary Spring, for a number of years.

But an argument began in the evening of July 25 last year, as the family sat together in the couple’s home in Hackney, east London.

All of the family had been drinking, and Mr Murrain had just returned from the betting shop, when Brown turned to him and said: ‘I need some money, can I have some money?’

Mr Murrain had said he had no money to give him, but Brown persisted, said Ms Fawcett.

‘It is believed that perhaps the defendant thought there had been a substantial win at the bookmakers, which is not the case,’ she said.

‘Mr Murrain explained again that he had no money and he had not had a win.

‘It is at this point, without a word, the defendant got up, picked up a small glass-topped coffee table, and smashed the table over Mr Murrain’s head.’

‘It rendered Mr Murrain immediately unconscious.’

Ms Spring rushed to her partner who had blood ‘pouring out of his head’, while Brown simply walked out of the room to get his bike from the hall, said Ms Fawcett.

‘She asked the defendant why he had done what he had done,’ she said.

‘He told her to shut up and said if the police were called he would kill them.’

Mr Murrain was treated by an ambulance crew, but suffered no long term injuries, the court heard.

But doctors found that Brown was suffering from a paranoid schizophrenic type mental illness and was ‘likely to pose a serious risk of causing serious harm to others’.

Brown, of (flat 8), Broadway House, Jackman St, London Fields, Hackney, denied wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm but was found guilty at trial.

Judge Simon Freeland ruled a hospital order under section 37 of the Mental Health Act, 1983, was ‘necessary for the protection of the public from serious harm’.

The judge told him: ‘There is a risk of you committing further offences at this time,which are so serious that it is necessary for the protection of the public from serious harm.’

He made an indefinite hospital order for Brown to be treated at the secure John Howard Centre in Homerton, Hackney, meaning he will only be released when doctors deem him safe.

He told Brown: ‘It offers you the prospect and opportunity to come to terms with your severe psychotic illness and to be treated for it.’
ends