A frail elderly woman who left a failed asylum seeker to live “like a grandchild” at her home in a North Yorkshire village was brutally murdered by him, a judge has heard.
Brenda Blaney, 87, met Shaheen Darwish-Narangebon in a Leeds restaurant in 2013 when he was a student, Leeds Crown Court heard.
She invited him to live with her at her home in the tourist village of Thornton-le-Dale, where she treated him like a grandson, the court heard.
But on January 5 last year, the Iranian national, who has paranoid schizophrenia, strangled Ms Blaney before smashing her head on the kitchen floor, stabbing her in the chest and slitting her throat.
Prosecutor Nicholas Lumley KC described on Monday how Ms Blaney had placed an order in the village shop when the phone call cut off. She could not be reached again despite 12 calls from the concerned shopkeeper, he said.
Mr Lumley said it was believed that was when the attack on her began.
He said Darwish-Narenjbon was born in Tehran but had been in the UK since he was 15, although he had lived for a time in the US, where he spent time in a psychiatric ward.
Mr Lumley said the defendant’s permission to remain in the UK expired in 2015 and his asylum application had been unsuccessful, as had his appeal against the refusal.
“Grandmother-Grandchild Relationship”
The prosecutor said Darvish-Narangebon met Ms Blaney at Carluccio’s restaurant in Leeds in 2013 and she offered him a room in her home where she “provided him with food and other domestic comforts while he studied at Leeds”.
He said their friendship was characterized as a “grandmother-grandchild relationship” and that they spoke regularly while he was away studying.
Mrs. Blaney even attended his master’s degree graduation and provided him with tuition and a car.
Mr Lumley said: “Towards the end of her life Mrs Blayney became increasingly frail and her memory was failing but she was able to live independently.”
He said no one except the defendant, who has a severe mental illness, knows what happened to her on January 5.
“Acutely psychotic”
The prosecutor said: “Mrs Blaney’s family continue to wonder what really happened to her and why she was killed.”
He said the accused told police he had been sleeping upstairs and came down to find her in a pool of blood in the kitchen.
Darvish-Narangebon appeared in court via video link from Rampton High Security Special Hospital wearing a gray sweatshirt.
Members of Ms Blaney’s family watched in court as James Stoddart, a forensic psychiatrist, told the judge that the defendant was “acutely psychotic” and had paranoid schizophrenia.
The court heard that under current rules he would be deported if he was ever released from a secure hospital or prison.
Darvish-Narenjbon denied murder but admitted manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility at an earlier hearing, which was accepted by prosecutors.
Judge Rodney Jameson KC said he would sentence him on Wednesday at 11am.
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