Thornton-le-Dale: Graduate brutally killed 'surrogate grandmother' who had given him a place to stay in her Yorkshire cottage after meeting him in Carluccio's

Shahin Darvish-Narenjbon, 34, admitted being responsible for the death of Brenda Blainey, 88, who was found strangled, stabbed and beaten at The Grove in Thornton-le-Dale, near Pickering, in January 2022.

He appeared at Leeds Crown Court today (Jan 30) for sentencing, but this was adjourned until Wednesday (Feb 1) to allow Judge Rodney Jameson KC to consider medical evidence.

The court was told the Iranian national had come to the UK at the age of 15 to study, but his permission to remain in the country lapsed in 2015 and his application for asylum had been refused.

While a civil engineering student at the University of Leeds, he worked as a waiter in a Carluccio’s restaurant in the city centre and met Mrs Blainey, a mother of two daughters, when she ate there as a customer in 2013.

They developed a ‘grandmother and grandson’ relationship and she eventually offered him a bedroom and office in her cottage, ‘food and home comforts’ and the use of a car. For the next few years, he moved between her address and his house in Cookridge, Leeds. In 2020, he registered an architectural engineering business at The Grove.

The court heard he had a long history of mental illness and was ‘acutely psychotic’ when he attacked Mrs Blainey as she placed a telephone order for groceries from her local shop. She had been strangled and her head struck against the kitchen floor, causing her to lose consciousness before her jugular vein was slit and she was stabbed in the chest.

Darvish-Narenjbon called 999 and initially said he had found his ‘grandmother’ injured in the house after hearing banging noises and cars driving away, implying that others had been responsible. He had thoroughly cleaned the 20cm kitchen knife thought to be the weapon used, and even asked a police officer for a glass of water before he was arrested.

He was charged with murder but a guilty plea to manslaughter by diminished responsibility was accepted. He has been held in a secure hospital since his arrest and now accepts that he intentionally killed Mrs Blainey when he was experiencing hallucinations and delusions and heard voices telling him to harm her.

The court was told he first showed signs of psychosis in 2008, and was even hospitalised in the US while a visiting student at prestigious Penn State University. A girlfriend noticed that in 2016 his mental state had deteriorated, and he lost his temper and damaged a door on one occasion.

Mrs Blainey attended Darvish-Narenjbon’s Masters graduation ceremony, but by 2022 her health had declined and she was frail and showing signs of dementia.

The court heard that Darvish-Narenjbon was thought to have been in Thornton-le-Dale from January 3, as CCTV showed him buying alcohol in the village shop, and Mrs Blainey was killed two days later after she had laid the table for breakfast.

Psychiatrist Dr James Stoddart told the court that Darvish-Narenjbon likely felt ‘there was a conspiracy against him’ when he killed Mrs Blainey, and that he had a history of self-reducing his medication. He added that Darvish-Narenjbon remained ‘high risk’ despite responding to treatment.