Man who beheaded Briton in Tenerife found guilty of murder - The Guardian

A drug addict suffering from schizophrenia has been found guilty of murder, after decapitating a British woman in an attack in a shop on the Spanish island of Tenerife.

Deyan Deyanov, 29, a Bulgarian, who was homeless, had twice been sectioned and was also the subject of a police warrant, repeatedly stabbed and then beheaded Jennifer Mills-Westley, 60, a retired road safety officer originally from Norwich, who was shopping in the popular resort of Los Cristianos, on 13 May 2011. Her family said her murder was "preventable and needless", the result of a "catalogue of failings".

Deyanov's defence had argued he was not criminally responsible for his actions because he suffered acute paranoid schizophrenia. But though his responsibility was diminished, a jury at the provincial court of Santa Cruz convicted him of murder because he took his victim by surprise and she could not defend herself.

Asked by the magistrate, María Jesús García Sánchez, if he had anything to say, Deyanov told his Bulgarian interpreter: "I am the second reincarnation of Jesus Christ and I will bring the fire of the Holy Spirit to bear against this court."

Mills-Westley, who had retired to the island, was attacked in a general store near the beach. That morning, 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 Más Artículos Mejor Precios shop on Avenida Juan Carlos I, picked up a 22cm (9in) knife and plunged it repeatedly into Mills-Westley's neck. To the horror of onlookers, he then walked out carrying her head, before being wrestled to the ground and arrested.

Deyan Deyanov. Photograph: Ramon De La Rocha/PA

Living rough in Los Cristianos, the crack cocaine and LSD user 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 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 La Candelaria hospital in Tenerife, before being bailed in early February 2011.

His victim's daughters, Sarah Mills-Westley, 43, from Norwich, and Samantha Mills-Westley, 39, who lives in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France, who have been supported throughout by the charity Missing Abroad. They said they would also "be asking the Welsh Health Authority to conduct a full inquiry into what happened in particular around [Deyanov's] treatment in Wales".

Describing their mother as "a highly gifted, selfless person with so much love in her heart", they thanked the jury for "having the courage to sit through this trial.

"It is clear to us that there has been a catalogue of failings," the family said in a statement. "Unfortunately it is now left to us to piece these together as we still have so many unanswered questions.

"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."