A woman who stabbed a grandmother to death in the street after her pleas to be sectioned were ignored has been jailed for a minimum of 37 years today.
Nicola Edgington, 32, almost decapitated 58-year-old Sally Hodkin and tried to murder Kerry Clark, 22, in Bexleyheath, south east London, in 2011.
Edgington had previously been detained in a mental health unit after stabbing her mother to death in 2005 but was released into the community in 2009.
She made five 999 calls on the day she killed Mrs Hodkin asking to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act as she believed herself to be a danger but her claims were ignored.
Hours after walking out of a mental health unit after being taken there by police, she killed Mrs Hodkin.
Edgington's sentencing came on the same day that the Independent Police Complaints Commission said it was of 'deep concern' that officers didn't carry out a proper computer check of the killer's name when she claimed that she was dangerous.
Jailing her at the Old Bailey this afternoon, the Recorder of London Judge Brian Barker said Edgington should stop blaming others for her actions and take responsibility.
He sentenced her to a minimum term of 37 years for Mrs Hodkin's murder and a concurrent sentence of 20 years for attempted murder.
Judge Barker told Edgington, 32, her behaviour had been 'consistent and calculated'.
He said: 'You are manipulative and exceptionally dangerous. What you did could not have been more selfish.
'I disagree that the responsibility for these acts can be laid on others.
'You made your choice and these were terrible acts for which you must take responsibility.
'You have come as near as can be to having three deaths on your hands.'
Last month a jury rejected claims that Edgington’s responsibility for the killing was diminished by any mental illness and convicted her of murder and attempted murder.
Edgington had been released into the community in 2009 after an order for indefinite detention following the stabbing of her mother was lifted.
Sally’s husband Paul Hodkin asked the judge in his ‘victim impact statement’ for Edgington to be jailed for at least 40 years - one year for every year of the couple’s marriage.
Within minutes of getting off a bus in Bexleyheath high street, Edgington unsuccessfully tried to kill 22 year-old Kerry Clark before attacking Mrs Hodkin, who was on her way to work as an accounts manager at a law firm.
The court had heard that Edgington, a former pupil at Sackville School in East Grinstead, had attacked her churchgoing mother with a phone when she was just 15 and was sent to different care homes because of her behaviour.
She later had two sons with two different men but one of them was taken into care and both children ended up living in Jamaica with their fathers.
Her mother Marion was terrified of Edgington and had predicted her death at the hands of her daughter.
Days before she died she wrote to social services stating: ‘She is the most unstable I have ever known her to be and for the longest period too.’
Edgington had been to the pub with her brother and sister on the night that she killed her mother but had been thrown out because of her erratic behaviour
She was also found to have written the names of Osama Bin Laden, George Bush and Reggie Kray in a notebook.
Edgington returned to her mother's cottage in East Sussex and stabbed her nine times, leaving her bloodied body on her bed.
Her brother and sister later discovered their mother's body and Edgington went on the run.
Following her arrest Edgington pleaded guilty to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility and in October 2006 was detained indefinitely under sections 37 and 41 of the Mental Health Act.
She was treated as an inpatient in a medium secure psychiatric facility by the Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust until 2009.
Psychiatrist Dr Adrian Cree said he believed she was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and experienced delusions.
‘She had a psychotic illness and needed to be in a hospital setting,’ he said.
But less than three years later in September 2009 the order for her to be detained indefinitely was lifted and it was agreed that she could be released under supervision.
She was given a supported housing association flat in Greenwich, south London, and visited every week by either her psychiatric nurse or a care worker. Her condition was also regularly reviewed by a consultant psychiatrist.
Nurse Tanya Biebuyck told the court said Edgington seemed relaxed and showed no sign of mental illness on September 29, 2011.
But a week later on 6 October Edgington became disturbed after contacting her brother Tom for the first time since killing their mother.
She emailed him on Facebook using the name ‘Princess Nicole’, telling him she loved him, that she had recently suffered a miscarriage, and complained that she was not being looked after as well as their mother would have done.
Hoping to renew their relationship, she also gave him her mobile phone number.
But Tom, who had not spoken to his sister since his mother’s death, replied with a blunt message reading: ‘You stabbed her to death and left me to find the body.
‘Good news about the miscarriage though. People like you should be sterilised for the good of the world. Do us all a favour and cut your wrists.’
Later that night she rang 999 to complain she had received threatening text messages and the following day phoned police to make a complaint about her ex-boyfriend.
Two days after that on 9 October she made a series of 999 calls claiming some ‘crackheads’ had got into her flat and stolen her keys, only to say she had found the keys.
A few hours later at 3am on 10th October Edgington went to the Greenwich Express cars minicab office in Woolwich Road and asked to be taken to Lewisham Hospital.
The driver noticed she appeared to be ‘paranoid’ and drooling at the mouth.
But when they arrived at Lewisham she claimed it was closed and asked to be taken to another hospital in Dartford.
He took her to Queen Elizabeth Hospital but when she refused to pay the fair he took her back to the cab office.
Edgington ran inside and cowered in the corner, claiming the driver beat her up and was going to ram his car through the window.
The police were called and Edgington was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital for assessment.
She booked herself in at 4.29am and sat down to wait but soon became agitated claiming she did not feel safe.
Edgington told staff she had not slept for weeks and claimed that she was hearing voices.
While waiting to be transferred to the psychiatric unit at Oxleas House she made a series of 999 calls saying she should be sectioned before she hurt somebody.
In the first call she told the operator she was waiting to be seen in casualty at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich.
She said: ‘I need for the police to come because I have had a nervous breakdown before and I killed someone.
I need to go to a mental hospital. I cannot sit in A&E, I don’t know what I’m gonna do next.’
She added: ‘The last time I was like this I killed someone. Could you please send a car here now please this is very important.’
In the second she said: ‘You need to come to Queen Elizabeth Hospital and take me into custody because I’m feeling very scared and paranoid and my psychiatrist has told me that when I am feeling like this I can be extremely dangerous.
‘I don’t want to start hurting anyone. I want to hand myself in now before I start hurting anyone else.’
Edgington said in her third call: ‘I’m in A&E at Queen Elizabeth. Now you really need to take me into custody please.
‘These people they’re just completely ignoring me. They won’t even phone the mental health people.
‘They won’t phone anyone, they won’t do anything for me at all. I really need you to take me into custody, yeah.
‘Do you want me to hurt someone here, I’m telling you if you don’t come to Queen Elizabeth Hospital
I’m gonna end up hurting someone.’
In her next 999 call she said: ‘I’m a very dangerous schizophrenic and if you don’t come and help me I’m gonna end up hurting someone.
‘I’m having a nervous breakdown. I’m really really not well.’
The operator replied: ‘Yeah but you are in a place of safety so you have got...
Edgington interrupted: ‘Well I’m not in a place of safety, I’m in an exposed area. Can you just get the police to come and get me. I’m getting more and more dangerous.’
In her final call she said: ‘I’m a paranoid schizophrenic and my doctor says that when I am scared I am very dangerous and I fell like I haven’t had medication for a while and I really need to go.
‘I need to be somewhere so I can lock a door. I’m feeling the wide spaces are scaring me...’
The operator tells her to ‘calm down’ and she replies: ‘I’m dangerous at the moment, I’m very dangerous.
‘You know the last time I was feeling like this I killed someone, the last time I was feeling like this I killed, I killed my mum.
‘I have got very strange ideas, I think I’m at the gates of heaven, I think.’
Edgington then starts crying and ends the call.
When she was finally seen by the psychiatric nurse a few minutes later at 5.30am she told him she had not slept for three weeks and needed to be sectioned.
He arranged for her voluntary transfer but she was not taken to Oxleas House until 6.30am.
She was then seen by the doctor on duty but Edgington was still waiting in reception when she walked out at around 7.05pm, telling staff: ‘I’m just going to call my care co-ordinator.’
It was then that Edgington set off by bus towards Bexleyheath where she launched her attacks on Kerry Clark and Sally Hodkin at 8.30am.
She first bought a knife from Asda and attacked 22 year-old Kerry Clark at a bus stop on the high street.
But Miss Clark managed to disarm her.
Edgington then went to a nearby butcher's shop and grabbed a second knife before going back out onto the street and attacking Mrs Hodkin.
The horrific attack was witnessed by a passer-by who talked police through events as they happened.
Nicholas Morris was heard to say: ‘I’ve just witnessed a lady try to stab another lady with a knife... The girl was so lucky, the knife just missed her.
‘You need to get someone here. She’s walked out the shop. She’s walking down the road now. I’m following her down the High Street.’
Mr Morris is then heard running after Edgington as she turned round the corner into Albion Road near the bowling alley.
He tells the operator: ‘She’s attacking another woman, she’s stabbing another woman with a knife.
‘I can’t get there.... she’s stabbing another woman. She’s bloody killing her. Oh my God, she’s f***ing killed her. For God’s sake.
‘Where are the police? I need some help here.’
During her trial for the murder of Mrs Hodkin, Edgington used the same defence she had used after she killed her mother.
But this time psychiatrist Dr Philip Joseph concluded she was only suffering from a borderline personality disorder and had probably never been mentally ill.
Prosecutor Nicholas Heywood also claimed that Edgington was ‘in control’ and purposefully decided to launch a random attack on members of the public.
Despite the judges comments, details of an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) released today found that police in Greenwich were not notified that she was living in the area after she was released.
The watchdog also found Met Police staff failed to carry out a police national computer (PNC) check on Edgington when she made contact with officers on October 10 2011, shortly before the murder.
This would have alerted them to her previous conviction for the manslaughter of her mother, the IPCC said.
Hours before she killed, Edgington sought help at a local hospital from where she called 999.
But after delays in admitting her, she walked out.
The IPCC found officers only contacted the hospital following her fourth phone call and said Edgington’s second 999 call from the A&E department was downgraded because she was considered to be in a place of safety.
An officer was not dispatched at this stage despite Edgington’s claim she could be very dangerous, it found.
IPCC commissioner Sarah Green said it was of 'great concern' that police did not carry out a PNC check.
She said: 'This tragic case has robbed a family of a much-loved wife, mother, grandmother and friend and my thoughts again go out to Sally Hodkin’s family.'
'Nicola Edgington had a violent history linked to her mental health problems and was evidently aware that she was a threat to others.
'She made repeated phone calls to police asking to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act and warned officers in person of the risk she posed to those around her.
'While our investigation found that no police officers or staff breached the code of conduct, it is of great concern that no PNC check was carried out which would have immediately alerted them to Edgington’s violent history.
'Without this PNC check, both the police and staff at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich were without crucial information which may have influenced their future decisions, increased the urgency of the situation and could have escalated the medical attention she was given.”
In a foreword to the IPCC’s report, released today, the watchdog said a mini cab employee called police in the early hours of October 10 to report that Edgington had taken a taxi with no money to pay for the journey and was asking to be sectioned.
Two officers who responded to the call took Edgington voluntarily to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Woolwich, south London, from where she continued to phone police herself, telling the call handlers she feared she would kill someone.
The IPCC said: 'In view of the nature of the incident the officers were dealing with, it is considered that they should have conducted a PNC check at that stage.
'However this was not done until Nicola Edgington was reported missing from the Oxleas Mental Health Unit later that morning.
'Had they done so, they would have discovered that Nicola Edgington had a previous conviction for manslaughter after fatally stabbing her mother in 2005, which may have influenced their decision to take her to hospital on a voluntary basis.”
The two officers attempted to leave Edgington in the care of the hospital staff but she followed them outside and had to be escorted back inside.
At this point, the pair missed an opportunity to have her sectioned under the mental health act, the watchdog said.
They instead left the premises and Edgington made further calls to the police which were 'sufficiently alarming' to indicate that officers should either have been asked to return to the hospital or the hospital should have been contacted, the IPCC concluded.
But police communications staff did not take action until the fourth call, when the importance of the case was downgraded in the belief the hospital had the matter in hand, the watchdog said.
A doctor later contacted the Met to report Edgington had gone missing; to request that she be located and returned for treatment; and to order that she should be detained under the mental health act if she resisted.
The call was incorrectly graded for response within the hour when it should have been marked up for immediate attention, the IPCC revealed.
It said: 'While no officer or member of police staff was found to have breached police or staff codes of conduct, the IPCC is critical of the police failure to conduct PNC checks or intelligence checks on Nicola Edgington and to pass on this information to the hospital staff.
'If this information had been passed to hospital staff, they may have given Nicola Edgington greater priority.'
Culled from MAILONLINE
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