MOTHER WITH PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIA KILLS TWO-YEAR-OLD SON AND IS DETAINED IN PSYCHIATRIC UNIT
A mother with paranoid schizophrenia who killed her two-year-old son has been detained indefinitely in a psychiatric unit.Shaun Ryleigh O'Neill's body was found at the family home in Champernowne in Modbury, Devon, on 19 January.
Angela Vane, 40, denied murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at Plymouth Crown Court.
Judge Graham Cottle described the case as "unimaginably tragic".
The court was told Vane, who has two other children in their 20s, tried to strangle her son and then stabbed him in the abdomen.
Prosecutor Martin Meeke QC said Vane had split from Shaun's father six months earlier and it was after this that she started having "psychiatric difficulties".
She thought Mr O'Neill was spying on her and shining laser beams on to her home.
