Guilty: Released prisoner who stabbed schoolgirl to death on bus

Phillip Simelane killed 16-year-old Christina Edkins in Birmingham in March after being released unsupervised from prison three months earlier despite worries about his mental state.

Ordering Simelane to be detained in a secure psychiatric unit, Mrs Justice Thirlwall expressed concern that the 23-year-old was not receiving treatment at the time of the killing.

Simelane, who was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, was released from jail in December last year after serving a four-week sentence for vehicle interference.

It emerged today a specialist registrar had earlier recommended Simelane, from Walsall, should receive specialist in-patient treatment for his mental health issues.

But Simelane, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, was sleeping on the streets and receiving no treatment when he stabbed Christina in a random attack at about 7.30am on March 7.

The court heard Simelane’s mental health problems began in his mid-teens and coincided with several criminal convictions, including two previous offences involving knives.

Passing a hospital order on Simelane, Mrs Justice Thirlwall said anyone hearing the facts of the case would be “disturbed” that he was living in the community with an illness of such severity.

The judge told Simelane: “At the time you attacked Christina you were suffering from a serious mental illness.

“Your mental function was wholly abnormal as a result of your mental illness. That is why you killed Christina - in your deluded state you thought she was a danger to you.

“It is difficult to understand how it came about that in December 2012 someone with your level of illness should have been sleeping rough with no one to look after you.”

The judge said: “On at least two occasions an experienced specialist registrar in psychiatry insisted you needed in-patient treatment. It was not made available to you.”

Referring to an incident a year before the fatal stabbing in which Simelane made death threats towards two girls on a bus, the judge went on: “Those who gave statements - ordinary lay people - were of the view that you were mentally ill.

“The terrible reality is that Christina was the person who happened to be on the bus on the day you were overwhelmed by your illness.”