Friday 22 February 2013

Man guilty of Tenerife beheading



Jennifer Mills-WestleyMs Mills-Westley retired from Norfolk County Council to live in Tenerife

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A man has been found guilty of decapitating a 60-year-old British grandmother in a Tenerife supermarket.
Deyan Deyanov, 29, who has a mental health condition, had denied murdering Jennifer Mills-Westley in Los Cristianos in May 2011.
He faces 15 to 20 years in a psychiatric unit after being convicted by a jury at the court in Santa Cruz.
Ms Mills-Westley, an ex-road safety officer from Norwich, had retired to live on the Spanish island.
The court heard she was repeatedly stabbed and then beheaded at a shop near the beach in the Canary Islands resort of Los Cristianos.
'Our best friend'
In a statement her daughters Sarah and Sam said: "Since 13 May 2011, Jennifer Mills-Westley has become known as the lady who was beheaded in Tenerife. The truth is she was our Mum, our mentor and our best friend. She was a highly gifted, selfless person with so much love in her heart and who has been taken away from us in her prime.
Deyan Deyanov in courtDeyan Deyanov has been diagnosed with acute paranoid schizophrenia
"It's hard to put into words the devastating impact that this preventable and needless act has had on us as a family; sadly mum was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
During his trial, Deyanov said he did not recognise himself in "tough" CCTV footage of the attack and had no recollection of ever living on the island.
The Bulgarian, who was homeless and could not remember living on the Canary Islands, has been diagnosed with acute paranoid schizophrenia and, when arrested, admitted he had used crack cocaine and LSD.
The trial heard that the morning of the murder, Deyanov had walked into another shop and asked for a knife "this big" because he was going to kill someone.
At 10.30am he went into the Mas Articulos Mejor Precios shop on Avenida Juan Carlos I, picked up a 22cm-long knife and plunged it repeatedly into Ms Mills-Westley's neck.
Unanswered questions
On the first day of the trial, Deyanov said "voices" had told him he was "an angel of Jesus Christ who is going to create a new Jerusalem".
He was well known to police on the island and had been arrested at least four times since January 2011 for violent offences.
A warrant for his arrest had been issued just three days before the killing but officers were unable to locate him.
He had previously been sectioned in the summer of 2010 under the Mental Health Act in Glan Clwyd Hospital, North Wales, and again at Tenerife's La Candelaria hospital, before being bailed in early February 2011.
In their statement, Ms Mills-Westley's daughters said lessons needed to be learned to ensure from her tragic death to ensure justice was done and so others did not go through the same ordeal.
"It is clear to us that there has been a catalogue of failings; unfortunately it is now left to us to piece these together as we still have so many unanswered questions," it said.
"We would like to make a plea that the care of people like Deyan Valentinov Deyanov is taken more seriously. He is a young man who has clearly been failed by a number of authorities, in the UK, Spain and most likely others."

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