Failed asylum seeker who killed pensioner in North Yorkshire was "pyschotic", court told

Shahin Darvish-Narenjbon admitted manslaughter on diminshed grounds after killing Brenda Blainey last year

Author: Liam ArrowsmithPublished 31st Jan 2023

A failed asylum seeker who killed an elderly woman who let him live in her North Yorkshire home had paranoid schizophrenia, a judge has heard.

Shahin Darvis-Narenjbon was taken in by 87-year-old Brenda Blainey when she met him at a restaurant in Leeds.

The court was told she treated the 34-year-old like a "grandon" before he went on to attack and kill her in Thornton-le-Dale last January.

Prosecutor Nicholas Lumley KC described on Monday how Mrs Blainey was placing an order with the village shop when the phone call went dead and she could not be contacted despite 12 calls by the concerned shopkeeper.

Mr Lumley said the assumption is that this is when the attack on her began.

He said Darvish-Narenjbon was born in Tehran but had been in the UK since he was 15, although he lived for some time in the US, where he spent time in a psychiatric unit.

Mr Lumley said the defendant's permission to remain in the UK expired in 2015, and his application for asylum was unsuccessful as was his appeal against the refusal to allow him to stay.

The prosecutor said Darvish-Narenjbon met Mrs Blainey at Carluccio's restaurant in 2013 and she offered him a room in her home where she "provided him with food and other home comforts as he was studying in Leeds".

He said their friendship was characterised as a "grandma-grandson relationship" and they spoke regularly while he was away studying.

Mrs Blainey even attended his masters degree graduation and provided him with a study and a car.

Mr Lumley said: "Towards the end of her life, Mrs Blainey was becoming increasingly frail and her memory was failing but she managed to live independently."

He said no-one but the defendant, who had a severe mental illness, knows what happened to her on January 5.

The prosecutor said: "Mrs Blainey's family continue to wonder what truly became of her and why she was killed."

He said the defendant told police he had been asleep upstairs and came down to find her in a pool of blood in the kitchen.

Darvish-Narenjbon, formerly of Tinshill Lane, Cookridge, Leeds, appeared in court by videolink from Rampton high security special hospital wearing a grey sweatshirt.

Members of Mrs Blainey's family watched in court as forensic psychiatrist James Stoddart told the judge the defendant was "acutely psychotic" and had paranoid schizophrenia.

The court heard that, under current rules, he will be deported if he is ever released from secure hospital or prison.

Darvish-Narenjbon denied murder but admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at an earlier hearing, which was accepted by the prosecution.

Judge Rodney Jameson KC said he will sentence him on Wednesday at 11am.

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