Son twisted by 'skunk' knifed father 23 times

Daniel Wilson, 28, stabbed Terry Wilson 23 times as he slept on the sofa at the family home.

Realising he was being attacked, Mr Wilson called out to his wife: "Ann, call an ambulance. My Danny has stabbed me. He's stabbed me in my sleep."

St Albans Crown Court heard yesterday that Wilson, whose drug use led him to drop out of his university law course, had been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia for several years - exacerbated by the use of skunk, a super-strong form of cannabis.

The supermarket worker from Brixton in South London used cannabis in his teens but remained a 'normal, happy teenager'.

His personality only changed when he went to London Metropolitan University to study law and began smoking skunk, before eventually dropping out.

He was put on medication in 2001 following a cannabisinduced psychotic episode but often failed to take it.

In 2005 he began suspecting he had been abused as a child after his mother, a 62-year-old payroll clerk, showed him footage of him sitting on a potty aged two.

Prosecutor Andrea Scott-Lynch told jurors: "He started to experience delusional thoughts that he had been abused by his parents."

Wilson began asking his brother Billy about abuse and started keeping a knife in his car.

Friends said he became violent and watched graphic footage of executions and uncensored war coverage on the internet.

A mental health assessment was carried out at the Lister Hospital in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, last year but staff decided there was no need to section him under the Mental Health Act.

On October 3, Mr Wilson, a 55-year- old bricklayer, spent the evening watching TV before falling asleep on the sofa at the family home in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.

In the early of hours the following morning, Wilson let himself in to the house with a set of keys his parents had given him and set about his father.

Mrs Wilson found her husband in a pool of blood. His last words were: "Ann, I'm dying. I love you."

He had stab and slash wounds to his head, chest, back and arms, with puncture wounds in his liver, lungs, heart and spleen.

Wilson was arrested in his car soon after. Blood tests showed recent or heavy use of cannabis.

He was detained indefinitely at a secure hospital yesterday after admitting manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Judge Michael Baker QC told him: "You were in the grip of delusional beliefs about your parents. There is no reason to believe they had done anything to you other than care for you and look after you as dutiful and loving parents."

The court heard several psychiatrists had concluded he had been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia 'exacerbated' by cannabis use.

Last week Gordon Brown revealed he was considering reversing Labour's decision in 2004 to downgrade cannabis to a class C drug, which meant users no longer faced automatic arrest.

One of the reasons put forward by the Prime Minister was growing medical concerns over the strength of skunk.

Cannabis was reclassified from a class B drug by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett.

But medical research has since repeatedly linked cannabis use to mental health problems, including schizophrenia.

There has also been a series of gruesome murders and suicides by cannabis users.