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Did son torture ‘devoted’ mum?
Court hears case of addict’s ‘nightmare’
A “PERFECT mum” may have been tortured by her drug addict son before he killed her at their Chalk Farm home, an Old Bailey judge was told.
If it can be proved that he used violent “persuasion” to force her to reveal her PIN numbers, he faces a minimum sentence of up to 30 years, the prosecutor said.
Leading psychiatrists hope to have the answer when they further question self-confessed murderer Amato ‘Martin’ Wright, Judge Paget, QC, heard.
Wright, 38, possibly tried to hoodwink a psychiatrist into believing he was mentally unbalanced, at the time of his attack, which will lead to a mandatory life term, coupled with a recommendation of the years he should serve.
Doctors said it resulted from a “drug induced psychosis” and not psychiatric illness, said prosecutor Jason dunn-Shaw.
Devoted mother of three Maria Wright was found dead, sprawled in her upstairs bedroom, by police officers who had been given keys to the terraced family home by her son.
He turned himself in at Kentish Town Police Station in Holmes Road after the frenzied killing he claimed was part of a “ghastly nightmare”.
Computer technician Wright was to have been sentenced on December 1 but Judge Paget, QC, adjourned the case until January 12.
Clean cut and smartly dressed, the loner admitted murdering his mother, a 71-year-old divorcee “much loved” by her two surviving daughter, family, friends and neighbours, at their house in Harmood Street, Chalk Farm.
Mr Dunn-Shaw said one of the doctors who examined Wright was convinced that “attempts to deceive him” had been made.
Tiny blonde Mrs Wright came to England from Naples after World War II.
The grandmother had lived in Harmood Street for more than 30 years, and until her retirement worked at the John Lewis store in Oxford Street.
Her son launched a hammer and knife attack on her in the early hours of March 16.
He is suspected of using her bank card to withdraw money. Police recovered CCTV film of him buying drugs in Chalk Farm Road at 4.30am.
Mrs Wright, a keen gardener whose two daughters, Anna, 35, and Elizabeth, 40, live outside London, was always smartly dressed and looked many years younger than she was.
She kept her home spick and span and enjoyed nights out at gaming casinos.
At breakfast time on March 16 her son confessed to officers, “I’ve killed my mother.”
Blood on the stairs and walls led investigators to a rear room where they found the body.
Mrs Wright, under five foot tall, had suffered 15 hammer blows to the head, six knife wounds to the body, and strangulation.
She had fractures to more than a dozen ribs. Her son was prone to “outbursts of anger.”
Her son had tried to wash bloodsoaked clothing in the bath.
His trainers, a knife and hammer, all with blood on them, were in a cupboard.
His fingerprints and footprints in his mum’s blood were evident.
Mr Dunn-Shaw told the court that a pathologist, Dr Vesna Djurovich, concluded that some of the injuries were inflicted “in a frenzy,” with a claw hammer.
Others to the neck were superficial and caused with the tip of a knife “jabbing and prodding with a degree of control”.
He added: “The theme of possible torture runs through this case.”
David Etherington, QC, defending, said it would be unsafe to conclude that “this was a murder for gain.” |
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