Troubled teenager battered mother to death

James Gethen, 16, bludgeoned widowed mother-of-three Ann Gethen just hours after she announced on Facebook that she had become engaged.

Sheffield Crown Court heard that the teenager had been devastated at his father Eric Gethen’s death from cancer just eight months previously.

Michael Smith, prosecuting, said: “It involved a sustained and savage attack on his mother in the living room of the family home, during the course of which the defendant used a baseball bat to strike a number of blows to her head, which killed her almost instantaneously.”

Mrs Gethen died from massive head injuries. Her daughter Paula also suffered a minor injury.

Gethen, 15, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his mother on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Mr Smith told the court the teenager had been born prematurely and contracted meningitis at just 15 weeks old, which psychiatrists believed may have affected his behaviour.

He suffered from a conduct disorder which led him to be prone to violence towards others and he once attempted to strangle a fellow pupil with a shoelace.

Gethen was very close to his father, who was a calming influence on him, but he died of cancer in December 2009.

Mr Smith said Gethen told police he had “armed himself with a baseball bat and killed his mother” in the early hours of Sunday, August 15, last year in Goldthorpe.

Two psychiatrists had assessed him and concluded that the meningitis had a significant effect on his development, leaving him with severe behavioural and learning problems.

Although he went to a mainstream school he exhibited episodes of “disruptive behaviour and violence” almost daily.

He was excluded and moved to a special school, but continued to have anger management problems and was sexually abusive towards girls of his own age.

When his father died, Gethen began drinking and smoking. He also did not get on with his mother, said Mr Smith.

Two days before the tragedy, the then 15-year-old damaged the home of his half-sister, whom he had been accused of harassing.

He also threw a brick through the window of a 76-year-old man’s home in a nearby village.

Judge Mr Justice Openshaw said he was “entirely satisfied” that the defendant suffered from a variety of psychiatric disorders, coupled with a learning disability, which made it proper for the prosecution to accept his plea.

The hearing was adjourned for further reports and Gethen was remanded into secure local authority accommodation.