Cullercoats man who stabbed stranger 50 times cleared of murder due to epileptic condition

Andrew Peacock, 44, targeted Lee Santos in the lobby of a block of flats two days before Christmas last year then called his partner and told her "I think I've killed somebody, there's a body lying next to me".

Newcastle Crown Court heard Mr Santos, 45, a dad and grandad who had been visiting his brother in the block where Peacock lived at Cullercoats, North Tyneside, suffered 50 stab wounds to his torso, head and neck and died as a result of blood loss.

Prosecutor Toby Hedworth KC told the court Peacock accepted he caused Mr Santos' death but denied murder and told jurors this is an "extremely unusual case".

Mr Hedworth said Mr Santos was an "entirely innocent man" who as in the "wrong place at the wrong time" and was killed by someone who was "seriously unwell".

Prosecutors accept Peacock has no memory of what he did.

After a two day trial jurors found Peacock not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

After the "special verdict", Judge Penny Moreland said: "Where a defendant is charged with murder and where the verdict is not guilty by reason of insanity the disposal set by law is that that person should be detained in a specific hospital and there he must remain until the Secretary of State consents to his discharge."

Judge Moreland said information on a suitable bed in a suitable hospital was not available to the court and the case was adjourned until September.

Mr Heworth told the court since his arrest Peacock has been examined by "highly experienced and eminent medical specialists for both the prosecution and defence".

The court heard the specialists agree that due to "postictal confusion" following an epileptic seizure Peacock "was unaware of his actions when he killed Lee Santos".

Jurors heard Peacock had a few seizures as a child but developed treatment resistant epilepsy in 2012.

In the years before the attack, the seizure episodes grew worse, despite various treatments being prescribed and some anticonvulsant medication caused Peacock to have paranoid thoughts and disturbed sleep.

Peacock had been due to undergo a psychiatric assessment in January, just days after Mr Santos' death.

Mr Hedworth said several experts who have examined Peacock since, agree that at the time of the killing, he was suffering a "disease of the mind, an abnormal mental state, caused by epilepsy and the consequences are he did not know the nature and quality of the act he was doing".

Mr Hedworth said the defence of insanity being accepted is "extremely rare".

Dr Pratish Thakkar, a consultant forensic psychiatrist at Rampton high secure hospital, said in a report, which was read in court, Peacock suffers from temporal lobe epilepsy with postictal psychosis and has a defence of "insane automatism" to the murder charge.

The doctor said automatism is behaviour that has occurred "without volition or will" and is a "lack of exercise of will without lack of consciousness".

Mr Hedworth told jurors on December 23 last year Mr Santos, from Wallsend, had visited his brother Paul Walker, who lived next door to Peacock at John Street in Cullercoats, on December 23.

The court heard the siblings left the flat to visit a local Co-op to buy an evening meal and drinks when Peacock pounced.

Mr Hedworth told jurors: "They left the flat and Mr Walker was approaching the exit door when he heard a disturbance behind him.

"He turned and looked back and saw the defendant had pounced out of his door and jumped on his brother.

"He saw Mr Peacock had a knife and he saw Mr Peacock stab Lee twice, in the side.

"Lee was by now on the floor, under the defendant."

Mr Hedworth said Mr Walker tried to prevent the attack on his brother but Peacock was "too strong" to be stopped.

Mr Walker told police Peacock's eyes were "proper crazy" at the time of the killing.

The court heard after the attack Peacock remained sitting on the floor with the knife still in his hand.

Mr Hedworth said: "He was to say he had just had a seizure and wasn't well.

"Police arrived on the scene extremely quickly.

"In the meantime, the defendant was himself making a call on his mobile, while he was sitting there on the floor, to his partner.

"He told her 'I think I've killed somebody, there's a body lying next to me. I don't know what's happened. I think I had a seizure'."

The court heard Peacock, who did not use drugs or alcohol, had a long history of epilepsy and his partner confirmed his fits had been becoming more frequent.

Jurors heard Peacock had contacted his partner in the hours before the killing and told her he "wasn't feeling very well" and planned to have a lie down.

His partner told police she was making tea when Peacock called her and added: "I picked up the phone and he said 'I think I've killed somebody, there's a body lying next to me. I don't know what's happened, I think I've had a seizure'."

The worried woman said she questioned Peacock about where he was and added: "I said 'what makes you think that? who is it?' and he said 'I don't know'."

She said, after some further discussion about what was going on: "I'm used to him being a bit confused if he's had a seizure and not knowing what he's talking about.

"I heard people come in and heard someone say 'start CPR' and then I heard noise for a little bit and then the phone went dead, so I thought something might have actually happened.

"I thought maybe he had seen someone in the street or someone who had passed out or something and he was next to them or someone was drunk and he was next to them, that's what was going through my mind."