Friday, July 12, 2024 - An inquest has heard how a mother told police, ‘I knew I was going to kill someone today’, after beating a pensioner to death in a Co-op supermarket, an inquest heard.
Eunice Rees, 87, waited in the car as her
childhood lover John, 87, went into the Penygraig Co-operative supermarket at
Rhondda, South Wales, to shop.
The retired engineer never returned after Zara Radcliffe, 34, battered
him with wine bottles and a fire extinguisher as he tried to stop her from
attacking a nurse with a knife.
Radcliffe, who has paranoid schizophrenia,
beat John, a churchwarden so hard with a wine bottle it broke, before picking
up another bottle and hitting him in the face and head a further 21 times as he
lay on the aisle floor, an inquest into his death heard.
John Rees, described by the coroner as ‘a private, quiet, and humble man’, died
from severe blunt force facial injuries, a post-mortem examination found.
When Radcliffe was arrested inside the shop,
‘she was calm’, Sergeant James Pearce said.
‘She spoke softly and had a manner of
indifference about her which resonates to this day. She said words to the
effect of, “I knew I was going to kill someone today”‘.
The 34-year-old mum-of-two later admitted
manslaughter by way of diminished responsibility and was sentenced to an
indefinite hospital order.
She also pleaded guilty to three charges of
attempted murder of Lisa Way, 53, Mr Price, 58, and Gaynor Saurin.
Radcliffe had been released from a mental
hospital with ‘no negotiated crisis plan’ a few months before the May 2020
attack.
There were ‘warning signs’ of her ‘rapid deterioration’ leading up to Mr Rees’
death, an independent review commissioned by Cwm Taf Morgannwg Safeguarding
Board found.
But the dangers were ‘not recognised or
poorly processed’ before she was discharged.
Radcliffe had spent two months in a
mental hospital after hearing ‘voices’ in her head in late 2019, and she
believed doctors were trying to kill her.
No longer taking her medication,
Radcliffe’s family were worried about the care she was receiving from mental
health services leading up to the attack.
‘She came out of hospital and she was ok, but there wasn’t any aftercare’,
according to her sister Kylie, who described their relationship as ‘very
close’.
‘I had a feeling something would happen and
it would take something serious for them to realise how ill she was.’
On the day of the supermarket attack,
Radcliffe had told her sister ‘delete my number’ in a series of strange text
messages, the inquest heard.
Kylie replied: ‘Stop this paranoid stuff,
you’re making yourself ill. You have done this a few times and you know this is
the start of you going ill.
‘Please stop this and take your tablets
love.’
In another message, she said: ‘Take your
tablets, Zara. You should know now these thoughts are not real love they are
all in your head.
‘Soon as you take your tablets you’re
alright.’
With no reply from Zara, Kylie ‘started to
worry’, calling the phone of her parents to try to track down her sister.
Then her son told Kylie ‘There had been a
stabbing in Penygraig’.
Paul Mears, chief executive of the Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board,
called it ‘a tragic case that has impacted upon the lives of many people’.
He said: ‘We apologise to Miss Radcliffe and
her family for any instances in which her care fell short of the high standards
we set ourselves.
‘We requested this external review to ensure
all opportunities for learning and improvement could be identified.’
Mr Rees was posthumously awarded the Queen's
Medal for gallantry for saving nurse Gaynor Saurin from Radcliffe’s attack.
Prosecutor Michael Jones KC told a
hearing that Mr Rees’s effort to stop Radcliffe was ‘a selfless and brave act
which cost him his life.'
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