Mother's 'I love you' message to son who stabbed her 11 times

The 21-year-old, who was 19 at the time of the attack on December 29 2013, had a history of drug abuse but had never suffered a violent or psychotic episode after taking them, the court heard.

Prosecutor Amy Packham said Mrs Mann had made a 999 call from the bathroom of their home at 6.20am on December 29, telling the operator: “My son’s just attacked me and stabbed me and he’s going mental downstairs with the knives.”

She said the incident had taken place in the kitchen but she had managed to get away, locking herself in the bathroom.

Miss Packham explained that Mrs Mann had no idea why her son had attacked her but that he had had problems in the past and had been drinking and taking drugs.

Mrs Mann described some of her wounds to the operator and said she was finding it difficult to breathe, the prosecutor said.

Officers arrived at the scene and found the property in darkness, the court heard.

When they entered, the defendant, who was naked, approached them covered in blood and started to try and climb out of a broken window, the hearing was told.

Miss Packham said: “The defendant said: ’I have stabbed her multiple times, I have killed her. I have stabbed my mum and I need to be punished for what I have done.’

“He said he had taken meow meow, loads of lines of it, and a lot of alcohol.

“He appeared manic and deranged at the time.”

The prosecutor said Mann told officers: “I am a paedophile, I do not want to live. Take me to the light, I can see the vampires.”

She continued: “He was not reacting to pain and was described as manic and deranged.”

Mrs Mann had suffered injuries to her back, head, neck and arms and was taken to hospital where she required surgery for multiple punctures to one of her lungs and internal bleeding, the court heard.

Following the attack she remained in the high dependency unit at the hospital for 14 days, Miss Packham said.

She told officers she had been woken by her son “trashing” his bedroom and that when she had checked on him, he followed her to the kitchen where he attacked her, the court was told.

Miss Packham said a friend who had spent the evening taking drugs with Mann said the defendant had left his home at 5am that day and had seemed fine.

Mann also required hospital treatment for serious injuries and spent much of his time in hospital sedated before being transferred to a psychiatric unit, and eventually to Lewes Prison, the court heard.

He pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm at a previous court hearing on January 19 this year.

David Etherington QC, representing Mann, said the defendant had become involved in taking drugs after completing his GCSEs and had spent time in The Priory trying to overcome his problem but had relapsed.

He told the court: “His parents even sent him to work on a kibbutz in Israel but the problems would come when he came home and fell in with the same crowd.”

He told the court Mann had had hallucinations on occasions after taking drugs but “had never had a reaction which caused him to be violent to another human being, particularly his mother who he loves very much and who he never had any conscious desire to hurt”.

Mr Etherington said Mann had relied on evidence of the attack because he had “virtually no coherent memory of what happened”.

He continued: “Looking back, in a mind that was very troubled at the time, he can only really rationalise it as being a suicide attempt by him in the grip of a delusion in which his mother somehow got involved.”

The court heard that although Mann had been “extremely mentally unwell at the time of the offence due to a drug induced psychosis” he had now recovered but remained “fragile and vulnerable”.