A paranoid schizophrenic who strangled his mother
A paranoid schizophrenic who strangled his mother believing she was a government assassin trying to murder him was sent to Broadmoor indefinitely today.
(Thursday)
Patrick Sureda, 30, throttled mum Geraldine at her Surrey home after she invited him home for a weekend stay from mental hospital, an Old Bailey jury heard.
Deluded Sureda was convinced she was part of a death plot hatched by the Labour Party because of his conservative politics.
Medical experts revealed the self-proclaimed ‘street leader of the Tories’ was suffering from a serious mental disorder.
A jury last month decided Sureda was suffering from such a mental disability he was not fit to mount a defence.
Following a four-day trial to establish the facts of the case, another jury today found Sureda had killed his mother.
Flanked by hospital staff, Sureda began ranting as Judge Graham Boal, QC, ordered he be detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act.
As he was led away by four burly male nurses, Sureda protested: ‘I told you it was planned by the New Labour secret police that evening.
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The jury heard Sureda pounced on August 20 last year after he went to spent the weekend at his mother’s flat in Mitcham Park Road, Mitcham.
Sureda had been receiving psychiatric care since 1996, and was a resident at the Springfield Hospital in Tooting, south London.
In the early hours of that morning Sureda phoned mental health workers and told them: ‘Something bad has happened.
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He then returned to the hospital and told concerned staff who rang the police.
Officers raced to the 68-year-old woman’s home in Mitcham to discover she had been strangled.
Neil Moore, prosecuting, said Sureda had described the incident to staff.
‘He explained that she was lying with her eyes open, motionless.
‘He said she had attacked him with a knife for no reason.
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‘He kept saying she was lying with her eyes open not moving.
Did that mean she was dead? He said he held on to her until she stopped shaking.
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After the verdict today Judge Boal told the jury: ‘It is a very sad case in every way.
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