In Novermber 2020, Shanil Patel attacked his mother with a cricket bat, killing her. (Representational)
A 34-year-old Indian-origin man was on Thursday sentenced to an indefinite hospital order for causing the death of his mother after attacking her with a cricket bat due to serious mental health issues.
Shanil Patel was sentenced at the Old Bailey court in London following a two-day fact-finding trial at the same court last month, when he was found to have committed the act which caused the death of his 62-year-old mother Hansa Patel.
"It is hard to speak of justice in a case as incredibly difficult and sad as this one," said Detective Inspector Maria Green from the Metropolitan Police Specialist Crime Command, who led the investigation.
"Hansa, alongside her husband, was a loving and dedicated parent to Shanil. She had recently retired so she could join her husband in helping their son manage his mental health condition. Her death is a terrible loss to her husband, son and family," she said.
During his trial, the jury heard that Patel had suffered from chronic paranoid schizophrenia since 2009, which manifested as persecutory delusions and auditory hallucinations. Prior to trial, Patel was deemed unfit to enter a plea and stand trial.
On November 25, 2020, Patel violently attacked his mother with a cricket bat, resulting in her death. He then left the family home and travelled to various areas of London before his arrest on board a bus near to Westway Cross Shopping Centre. This was an area Patel was known to frequent and police had spoken to security guards in the area to inform them they were looking for Patel.
Patel was arrested the next day, on November 26, 2020. The clothing Patel was wearing at the time of his arrest was seized, forensically examined and found to bear traces of his mother's blood.
Bloodstained footwear marks from the scene also matched the shoeprints of the trainers Patel was wearing at the time of his arrest. The blood-stained cricket bat used in the attack was recovered from the living room. The handle of the bat bore traces of Patel's blood from an injury he sustained during the attack.
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