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A paranoid schizophrenic who admitted to cutting the throat of a seven-year-old girl in a park was acquitted of murder.
Eltiona Skana had admitted to the murder of Emily Jones on grounds of diminished responsibility, but was on trial after pleading not guilty to murder.
On Thursday, evidence was heard from a consulting forensic psychiatrist who has been treating the 30-year-old at high-security Rampton Hospital.
A day later, the prosecution told Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court that there was no realistic prospect of a conviction on the murder charge.
The murder charge was dropped Friday and the jury was instructed to return a not guilty verdict.
Skana will be sentenced for involuntary manslaughter on Tuesday.
Emily had been taken to Queen’s Park in Bolton by her father on Mother’s Day in March and was riding her scooter when she saw her mother, Sarah Barnes, who was jogging.
The young woman was calling her mother as she passed a bench in the park where Skana was sitting, alone, with a craft knife that she had taken from a pack of three that she had bought that same day in a store in the center of the city of Bolton.
Skana got up, grabbed Emily and slit her throat, before throwing the boy to the ground and running off.
There had been no interaction between Skana and Emily before the attack, accuser Michael Brady QC told the court.
The defendant, originally from Albania, was subsequently arrested under the Mental Health Law.
During the judicial process, the prosecution said that, although it was accepted that the defendant has, and has had, mental health problems for several years, it was the jury that had to decide whether it was a case of murder rather than homicide.
Prosecutors questioned whether Skana’s poor mental health was a “convenient excuse” for her actions.
Jurors heard Skana tell a nurse while in Rampton: “It was premeditated, I waited in a park and picked up my victim, did what I did and then tried to escape.”
But they also told the court that the conversation took place at a time when Skana was not taking her antipsychotic medication as part of a change in treatment at the hospital.
When police raided his Bolton apartment after his arrest, they found a cache of unused antipsychotic medications, which was equivalent to about a month’s worth of medication.
In 2017, Skana had stabbed her own mother and in another incident she attacked her sister and had been admitted to mental hospitals three times.
Simon Csoka QC, in defense, asked his consultant at Rampton, Dr. Syed Afghan: “Would you agree that there is ample evidence in your medical history of paranoid schizophrenia? To remit and relapse and provoke psychotic violence when you have a relapse? “
Dr. Afghan replied: “Violence while under psychosis, while she has been psychotic, she has been violent, yes.”
