"No risk" Littlehampton mental patient stabbed a complete stranger 82 times

Benjamin Frankum, who had been living in a flat in Arundel Road, was convicted of causing the death of Daniel Quelch by a jury which took less than an hour to reach its verdict.

The jury heard that paranoid schizophrenic Frankum, who had not taken his anti-psychotic drugs for nine weeks, was allowed to roam free because health bosses decided he was not a danger to the public.

Their decision was made despite appeals by Frankum's grandmother Norma, to have him locked up because she felt he was mentally unwell.

Soon afterwards, he walked into the home of 33-year-old Mr Quelch's parents in Maidenhead, Berkshire, and started stabbing the sleeping father - in front of two children.

Frankum told police that his victim was a torturer and that he had been ordered to kill him by MI5.

Frenzied attack

However, after being admitted to a secure psychiatric hospital he changed his story, saying gangsters murdered Mr Quelch and he had tried to intervene.

The jury came to a unanimous agreement on Monday that Frankum, 26, had carried out the frenzied attack on August 23 last year.

The court heard earlier in the case that Mr Quelch had been on holiday in Canada at the time of his son's death.

Mr Quelch jnr and his children had been staying with his mother in Maidenhead, the night before the murder.

Mrs Quelch had gone out to walk her three dogs, leaving her doors unlocked with her son and three children were asleep inside her bungalow.

When she returned she was greeted by Frankum, who was wearing only his black boxer shorts and was covered in blood.

Chillingly, he laughed as he told her "you should see the mess in your house" and then went on to tell emergency service workers "there are things in there you don't want to see, there's a bloke in there and I have stabbed him in the neck about 10 times."

He was arrested and gave a graphic and gruesome account of repeatedly stabbing Mr Quelch.

The video of the hour-long interview, in which Frankum chuckled to himself as he described the killing, was shown to the jury at Reading Crown Court last week.

Summing up at the end of a four day trial, Judge Zoe Smith said Frankum had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2001 and had been hospitalised because of his illness.

In June 2007 he had moved to semi-independent accommodation but two months later his grandmother had started to express concerns that his mental state was deteroriating and that he was unable to look after himself.

Voices "told him to do things:

He disappeared from his Arundel Road flat on August 20 and turned up in Maidenhead two days later, where he stayed with his mother before disappearing again in the hours leading up to the killing of Mr Quelch.

Frankum's psychiatrist Dr Edward Petch also gave evidence, saying his patient suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was delusional.

He said one of his symptoms was that he received "auditory commands" or voices which told him to do things.

Members the Quelch family released a moving tribute to the victim at the end of the case.

It read: "Danny was very much a family man and we all miss him so much. He was the youngest of four brothers and a devoted father to his three children.

Victim "a very gentle man"

"He would often call his mum three times a day and we always spent Sunday lunches together as a family."

The statement added the Mr Quelch, a landscape gardener in the Maidenhead area, was well liked by his employers and co-workers.

"Danny was a very gentle man, with a lovely smile and lovely eyes. His loss has changed our lives and affected the whole family forever."

Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which had been caring for Frankum for six years, offered its "sincere sympathies" to the Quelch family after the case.

It added in a statement: "He (Frankum) had no history of violence towards others and was described as a gentle and caring man by those who knew him.

"Mr Frankum was seen regularly by professional staff and was assessed for detention under the mental health act several weeks before the incident, because of family concerns about his condition and his lifestyle.

"However, there was not sufficient evidence of a risk to himself or others to detain him against his will. He was offered a bed as a voluntary patient but chose not to do that."

After the incident the trust commissioned an independent review of Frankum's care and treatment, which had found no systematic failings.

The South East Coast Strategic Health Authority is now commissioning a fully independent enquiry, according to rules set out by the Department of Health.

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