Ex-Merseyside Police officer Andrew McDiarmid died aged 64 after being stabbed by Benjamin Moglione
A university student who killed his stepdad by knifing the ex-police officer 17 times in his own bed with "no warning" has been given an indefinite hospital order.
"You brutally attacked and killed your stepfather Andrew McDiarmid while he was resting in bed while suffering from the effects of covid. There was no warning to this attack and nothing had happened to provoke it. "There was never any doubt that you were the person responsible for this appalling crime. From an early stage, it became clear that the central issue would relate to whether, at the time of committing this offence, you were suffering from severe symptoms of mental disorder and, if so, what part they played in what you did.
"All the medical experts agreed that, at the time of the attack, you were likely suffering from postictal psychosis. This is a condition which affects some epilepsy sufferers and is a severe mental condition in and of itself. Gordon Cole KC previously told a jury of eight men and four women during the prosecution's opening in March that Moglione's mum Alison had called 999 at around 8.45pm on January 24 2022 and reported that her son had stabbed her husband. Emergency services subsequently attended the address and found Mr McDiarmid lying gravely wounded on top of the bed in the couple's bedroom.
Around half an hour later, Ms Moglione went to shower in the upstairs bathroom. An internal CCTV camera which was situated on a table in the hallway, covering the area of the front door, then showed her son walking downstairs from his bedroom in his dressing gown and slippers before collecting a knife from a magnetic block on the wall of the kitchen.
Tegretol - the medication which Moglione had subsequently been prescribed - was said to have left him "forgetful" and "very sleepy", and he switched to different tablets, lamotrigine, from September 2021 onwards. However, in December that year, his condition started "going out of control". Referring to the meals she had been cooking for him while he was in isolation, Mr McDiarmid was said to have told her: "I'd be happy with cheese on toast. Focus on getting Ben right."
"Ben came into the bathroom. In my head, I thought he'd had a seizure at the top of the stairs. Then I thought, is Andy ok because of the covid? I dried myself really quickly.Ms Moglione described how she saw his hands soaked with blood, and said: "I checked Ben's wrists, then started running to my bedroom. I went into the bedroom and saw Andy on our bed.
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