Murder accused told staff ‘I’m a psychopath’

A WOMAN accused of stabbing a teenage girl in a random park attack told medics she was a “complete psychopath” and asked for anti-psychotic drugs just a month before the incident, a court heard.

Hannah Bonser, 26, who is accused of stabbing 13-year-old Casey Kearney to death in Elmfield Park, Doncaster, also told outreach staff she had previously been warned by police for carrying a knife in the street. She denies murder.

A jury heard Bonser was admitted to “crisis housing” run by a mental health charity on January 8 this year, but was discharged a week later on January 14, exactly a month before she killed Casey.

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Tareen Mallin, a support worker from Rethink, which ran the housing project, told Sheffield Crown Court that Bonser had asked staff to let her see a doctor before she left, but it was not arranged.

Prosecuting, Graham Reeds QC told the court Bonser returned to Rethink in Imperial Crescent, Doncaster, after stabbing Casey on Valentine’s Day and admitted it to two support workers.

Giving evidence, one of the workers, Tareen Mallin, said she had met Bonser when she was admitted in January and went through notes made on her admission with Bonser’s defence barrister, David Fish QC.

The court heard that Bonser told workers when she first arrived at Rethink: “I used to read until I read Catch 22 and my mind exploded. I used to watch TV but the noise started to split my head apart.”

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Miss Mallin told the court how on the day Casey died, Bonser had arrived at Rethink and had first spoken to a colleague and then had asked to speak to her.

“She said to me she had killed somebody,” she said. “At that point I asked her to come up to the office where it would be more private. I asked her to sit by a window and I asked her to repeat what she had said.

“She said that she had killed somebody. She said that she had stabbed somebody in Elmfield Park.” Miss Mallin said she told Bonser she was going to call the police and added: “She was quite happy for me to do that because she said she wanted to hand herself in.”

According to notes read out by Mr Fish during his cross-examination of Miss Mallin, Bonser had said to Rethink staff in January that she tended to isolate herself because “I may harm them psychologically”.

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In the notes Bonser continued: “I tend to isloate myself away from others. I often don’t remember doing things. I go to the shops and then it’s all there on the table. The inbetween bit is a mystery, I go to A&E when in a crisis and seek help.”

Miss Mallin told the jury: “She said she’d been hearing male voices and they’d been telling her to do evil things and they were dragging up her past.” She added: “She mentioned that she’d been unwell for quite a long time.”

In a statement read to the court, Pc Daniel Sharp related how he had tried to treat Casey before paramedics arrived and, at first, did not realise the teenager had been stabbed.

The officer said he tried to encourage her to keep breathing and, once the stab wound had been located, he kept pressure on the wound, staying with her until she was taken into an operating theatre at Doncaster Royal Infirmary.

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The court also heard from a friend of Bonser’s, Hayley Spouse, who said she had known the defendant for about eight years and had seen a “massive change” in her behaviour.

Miss Spouse, a community worker from Intake, Doncaster, said she had tried to help Bonser to move from her flat in Cusworth House, which she “hated” and help her to find work in the community.

But she said Bonser had started smoking cannabis and begun reading books about druids, which had led her to become “really hippy”.

Miss Spouse said Bonser had told her she planned to stab an ex-boyfriend because he had forced her to have an abortion and “take revenge” on anyone else who had crossed her in life.

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Bonser’s friend said she had become concerned about Bonser “talking to rocks” when she had gone camping at the site of the former Earth Centre in Mexborough, near Doncaster.

She added: “What was worse was when she said that they had been talking back at her.

“She was also absolutely terrified of crows because she thought they were people out to get her.”

The trial continues.

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