Benjamin Moglione stabbed former Merseyside Police detective Andrew McDiarmid up to 17 times
The cello playing teenager was the only child of Alison Moglione, a programme lead in children's services at Liverpool City Council. Since his mother had first met her future husband Andrew McDiarmid when he was five, he had come to know the former Merseyside Police detective as a de facto father.
Living in halls in the first year of his course, Moglione unexplainedly "started waking up on the floor with injuries on his face" around exam season. Then, on one occasion while he was home for the summer, the usually "early riser" remained in bed past lunchtime and then, once roused for something to eat, hunched forward and "virtually put his head in his dinner" as he sat at the table.
Moglione suffered his first seizure in the daytime nine days before Christmas while stopped in his car at a set of traffic lights in Prenton. Staff from a nearby Morrisons Daily store spotted him collapsed at the wheel and had to smash through the window of his vehicle in order to give him medical aid.
The same day, Andy had been out helping a friend with the fascias on his house but began to feel under the weather. He too then tested positive for covid and went into isolation in the couple's bedroom, with Alison moving temporarily into the spare room. During this call, Mr McDiarmid told her: "Have a rest, do your hair and go to bed. All I want you to do is focus on Ben."
Stationed in the hallway and pointing at the interior of the front door, the camera had recorded footage which showed the young man walking downstairs clad only in his dressing gown and slippers. He then collected a knife from a magnetic block on the wall of the kitchen before the video showed him returning upstairs, clutching the blade in his right hand.
In the kitchen, Moglione took another knife from the same block and held it to his side before being calmed down by his mum. He was arrested that evening at the family home on Oldfield Way, and has been held in Clock View Hospital in Walton since. "He hasn’t premediated that. He was in a seizure state. I don't know if he’s had a seizure, but that was not my son. That was not my normal son."It’s a tragedy. I’ve lost my son and I've lost my husband. This position is like a nightmare. I need to wake up, but it’s real."
The Honorary Recorder of Liverpool Judge Andrew Menary KC, who presided over the trial, told the court: "Three doctors have independently looked at the circumstances of this case, and each independently reached conclusions. The conclusions of each of them are that Benjamin Moglione undoubtedly suffered from epilepsy and that it was not properly controlled, the consequences of which were that he suffered seizures and sometimes clusters of seizures.
"He was not unconscious and he was not sleepwalking at the time he did it. The complete defence of automatism is not available, but there is evidence capable of supporting the partial defence of diminished responsibility.
Crime Heswall West Kirby Prenton Wavertree Tuebrook Huyton Birkenhead
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