Killer Who Stabbed Father To Death Breaks Down In Court

A killer who stabbed his father to death in his armchair wept in the witness box as he told jurors he was "shattered and heartbroken" at what he had done.

Peter McDermott, 42, knifed pensioner Bernard McDermott, 65, three times in the head, three times in the arm, seven times in the neck, and 13 times in the body.

The pensioner died in hospital soon after the drunken, lunchtime attack last year.

The High Court in Stirling has been told the wounds were inflicted with a nine-inch kitchen knife after McDermott downed fortified wine and went to his father's flat in Greenock, Renfrewshire, to apologise over something he had said the night before.

McDermott, an ex-NHS cook, has admitted delivering the fatal wounds, offering to plea guilty to culpable homicide on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

He denies the greater crime of murder -- and claimed he "cut off" after his father began to chant the words: "Burn, Baby Burn".

McDermott, his face streaked with tears, told jurors his father had initially refused to let him in, and then refused to accept his apology.

He said his father, whom he described as an alcoholic, had been drinking vodka, and punched and headbutted him in the hallway of the flat in Lynedoch Street, Greenock.

He said: "I grabbed his arms and held him tight. I told him I loved him so much, please will you stop?

"Then he relaxed and went back to the living room and sat down.

"He went calm, then he started getting angry again."

He said his father blamed him for putting his mother in her grave -- the court heard she had in fact died in 2002 after open-heart surgery.

He said the pensioner then began to chant words he'd used years earlier, before incidents of domestic abuse in his childhood.

He said: "The last thing I remember is my father chanting in my face 'Burn, Baby, Burn'. He repeated it, right in my face.

"I don't know what it meant to him, but growing up in the family house in Paisley it was a big thing. When me and my sister heard it, we knew there was going to be big trouble -- my dad was going to kick off, my mum was going to get a hard time, and me and my sister had to get out of the road."

He said he could remember nothing after his father's chanting.

He said: "That was my cut-off point. I can't remember after that.

"I don't remember getting a knife or stabbing my dad.

"My last memory is sitting on the couch, Dad sitting on his chair, and hearing 'Burn, Baby Burn'.

"My next memory is waking up in the police station and being charged."

He told his counsel, Tony Graham: "I was shattered, heartbroken."

Mr Graham asked: "Did he deserve to die?"

McDermott: "No."

Mr Graham: "Did he deserve to have his life stabbed out of him by his own son?"

McDermott: "No."

Mr Graham asked: "Why were you heartbroken? He was a bad man who'd made your childhood hell."

McDermott replied: "He was my father. I loved him."

Earlier, McDermott said that he had been told he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and by last year he was an alcoholic, downing an average of two bottles of Eldorado or Mansion House fortified wine every day.

He said he had been living with his father since February 2013, but before that had been apart from him before that for many years, since his father left his mother when he was "11 or 12".

Sobbing openly, he said his father had directed "a lot of anger" towards his mother.

He said: "There were big arguments, massive rows, shouting, screaming, plates getting smashed, and lot of threats against my mother's sisters and her brothers as well.

"I really cannot remember him being sober... it just seemed constant, never-ending."

He said as a child he saw his father "skelp" his mother in the face.

He said: "I tried to stop him but he threw me out the road. He slapped her very hard.

"Mum was in tears, sobbing, and I was terrified, absolutely terrified."

He said on another occasion his mother came out of her bedroom with her eye swollen up, and told him that his dad had "ripped a spring out of the bed and smashed it against her face".

Jurors have been told that after killing, on April 23rd 2014, McDermott staggered out of his father's block of flats apparently still carrying the knife, which was later found by a dog walker in nearby Well Park.

McDermott "unhurriedly" sipped a drink in the local James Watt bar, before being detained by police after going into public toilets.

At the close of the Crown case, McDermott, of Greenock, was formally acquitted of charges of having a knife in a public place, using threatening and abusive behaviour, and attempting to defeat the end of justice, after the Crown withdrew the allegations.

Judge Lord Uist told jurors: "This means you can focus your minds exclusively on the charge of murder."

The trial continues.