Man detained for mother's hammer killing

A judge has called for an investigation into how a care in the community patient came to batter his mother to death at her home.

Paranoid schizophrenic Marlon Mclure, 46, beat Waveney Mclure, 70, over the head 18 times with a lump hammer last April.

She was found dead in her flat in Crondall Street, Hoxton after Mclure called police from his hostel in Bow and said: "I have murdered her with a mallet."

The Old Bailey heard Mclure had not taken medication to control his condition for almost eight weeks.

He had been locked away on a secure ward after trying to burn his mother's house down in 1993, but doctors released him in 2002.

Judge Timothy Pontius QC said: "I must express the court's concern ... about the way in which the defendant was allowed to go for a period of days and weeks without his medication ... "

Mclure admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He will be detained indefinitely in a secure unit under the Mental Health Act.