A patient who ran away from a secure psychiatric unit and beat an elderly church warden to death with a large golf umbrella has been jailed for six years.
David Parish, 38, randomly hit Beryl Purdy, 86, over the head with the makeshift weapon taken from her porch on March 27, 2023.
Before the attack, he locked Mrs Purdy's husband, Peter, in the kitchen of their home in the village of Broomfield, Somerset.
Parish was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia caused by smoking cannabis and had been detained temporarily under the Mental Health Act at the Rydon Ward in Taunton.
However, Bristol Crown Court heard he had been able to leave the unit on the day of the attack after the front door was left unlocked.
