Epileptic killer, 23, who stabbed his retired detective stepfather to death ... trends now

A University student who stabbed his retired detective stepfather to death was today cleared of murder after a court heard he was in a psychotic state brought on by his epilepsy.

Ben Moglione, 23, knifed Andrew McDiarmid, 64, at least 13 times after watching an episode of the BBC's Panorama programme about knife crime.

He had been on trial at Liverpool Crown Court for the decorated police officer's murder, but offered a guilty plea to an alternative charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Gordon Cole, prosecuting, said the plea had been accepted after consideration by the Crown Prosecution Service and jurors then found him not guilty of murder on the judge's direction.

After sentencing was adjourned - with Moglione told he faces imprisonment, a hospital order or a combination of both - a close relative of Mr McDiarmid said the family had been left feeling 'a minefield of emotions'.

The court heard Moglione had been suffering with postictal psychosis - psychosis which occurs following a cluster of seizures - which meant he never intended to kill Mr McDiarmid.

His mother, Alison Moglione, 56, previously told jurors her usually 'calm and placid' son, who had been diagnosed with epilepsy aged around 18, had appeared 'out of it' immediately after the killing, in January 2022.

'He was in a different place,' she said. 'He was living a seizure, that wasn't Ben.'

Mrs Moglione, a senior civil servant with Liverpool City Council, discovered her husband, a former detective inspector who served with Merseyside police for 30 years, dead on their bed.

Judge Andrew Menary KC, the Recorder of Liverpool, discharged the jury and told Moglione, who is currently detained at a mental health hospital, that he will be sentenced in May.

His barrister, Anne Whyte, KC, had asked for the adjournment to allow Moglione's neurologist to prepare a report which will then enable the psychiatrists to produce a further report.

Judge Menary said three psychiatrists agree that the defendant undoubtedly suffered from frontal lobe epilepsy.

The judge said symptoms can include hallucinations and the psychiatrists are of the firm conclusion he was suffering post-ictal psychosis 'which explains how this very tragic event happened'.