In a harrowing day in court a mentally-ill Briton who lived and grew up in the Algarve has admitting battering his mother to death while high on drugs – inflicting so many injuries on her body that prosecutors said “it was difficult to tell which one had killed her”.
Louis Yates, 31, has been held in a high-security prison in Lisbon since the day his mother’s body was discovered at the family’s luxury home in Caramujeira (Lagoa) last August (click here).
A report in today’s Daily Mail describes how Yates attacked his mother, took a saw and a kitchen knife to her neck, and then “defiled her and poured acid over her body”.
Yates told Portimão judges that he “had thought of himself as Jesus, saw his mother as the devil and believed the CIA had ordered him to hit her ‘as hard as he could’.
Now he accepts his mother was not the devil, explains the Daily Mail, adding that Yates, who suffers from paranoia and schizophrenia, told judges: “It’s terrible. For many years she was my best friend”.
The court heard the 31-year-old stamped on his mother’s head and upper body “dragging her from her bedroom where he attacked her to an outside patio where he left her”.
Long-haired Yates attended the court hearing in handcuffs.
He was removed on the request of his elder brother Anthony – described as a 51-year-old London-based economist – who is reportedly seeking just over £50,000 compensation from his sibling over their mother’s death.
Anthony Yates told judges: “’I don’t bear my brother ill-will but I am frightened of him”.
Said the Mail, Louis Yates is “likely to be confined in a high-security hospital as prosecutors accept he cannot be held criminally responsible”.
Despite the fact that he has admitted guilt, Yates’ murder trial will continue into a second day tomorrow (Wednesday).
Says the Mail: “The three judges will then retire to consider the defendant’s fate and are expected to confirm he should continue at a high-security prison hospital in Lisbon”.
