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Anne James: Murder accused tells jury of hearing devil voice

A man on trial for the murder of his grandmother ‘planned what to do and felt relieved when it was over’, a jury was told.

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Anne James was allegedly murdered by her grandson Gregory Irvin

Gregory Irvin, aged 26, had started to hear a voice in the months leading up to the attack which sounded like ‘an angry devil version’ of himself and told him to commit crimes, he told a psychiatrist.

Irvin, of Bilston, is accused of stabbing 74-year-old Anne James more than 40 times and slitting her throat at her home in Walsall.

The defendant, who had gambling and cocaine addictions, claimed he could not remember driving to her house in Doveridge Place on February 28, or anything about the attack that followed, but recalled walking up the path.

He had heard a single voice in his head at night in bed for about five months before, he told psychiatrist Dr Leela Sivaprasad.

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It told him to commit crimes such as theft and he felt he had to react to the voice, she told Birmingham Crown Court.

“He said he planned what needed to be done and felt relieved when it was over. He felt no remorse,” Dr Sivaprasad said.

Police at the scene where Anne James died

The jury heard that Irvin was not specific about what it was he had done but the psychiatrist took it to mean the fatal attack on his grandmother.

The court heard Irvin had gone to his GP in September 2016 with anxiety issues.

After splitting from his long-term girlfriend in October 2016 he had started to feel suicidal.

He had been taking cocaine since the age of 16 or 17 ‘to block things out’, spending up to £200 a week, Irvin had told Dr Sivaprasad.

But when interviewed by a psychiatrist after his arrest he had ‘presented as mentally stable’, the jury heard.

Irvin, of Bilboe Road, Bradley, Bilston, denies murder. The trial continues.

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