Brighton hospital stabbing: Connolly Mellon's mental health probed

Connolly Mellon claimed that he was ordered to kill George Joseph by special forces unit the SAS via telepathy.

He went into the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton where he wanted to reach the helipad.

The 30-year-old was asked by Mr Joseph for identification when he saw Mellon wandering around on the 11th floor.

Mellon is accused of later attacking Mr Joseph from behind with a knife, stabbing him in the neck.

At Lewes Crown Court, Mellon denied attempted murder saying he was insane at the time.

His father Francis Mellon, himself a mental health nurse, said in the three weeks before the incident his son was becoming more “unpredictable”.

Mr Mellon, known as Frank, described how on the morning of the stabbing, his son had grabbed him by the throat and branded him as the devil.

“I was frightened for him, he had become so erratic over that weekend, he moved from being reasonably to unpredictable,” Mr Mellon said. “He thought I was trying to kill him, he was trying to strangle me and called me the devil.”

STABBING RCH HOSPITAL BRIGHTON.

Mr Mellon described how his son had waded into the sea at Brighton, and had to be rescued by Brighton Lifeguards, and said he thought the first coronavirus lockdown really affected him.

“The behaviour became much more sinister,” Mr Mellon said. “He had gone from wanting to save the world and protect the world, to people wanting to kill him.”

A mental health rapid response team had diagnosed Mellon with early onset psychosis just 11 days before the incident at the hospital, his father revealed.

Incidents also included police at Brighton Police Station calling him over concerns. He was “agitated” and claimed the “end of the world was coming” and that he would be “sacrificed”.

Police told Mr Mellon his son looked “extremely unwell” and “exhausted”.

Mellon had claimed that he would die and rise again, and wanted his father to go to the mortuary to keep a vigil over his coffin.

On another occasion Mellon claimed he was being chased by secret agents.

He also wrote a book claiming he had invented technologies to save the world, including with a new spaceship.

Mr Mellon said he wanted to get his son urgent care and possibly even sectioned under the Mental Health Act, but was told there were “no beds” for his son to be treated.

STABBING RCH HOSPITAL BRIGHTON - WILSON AVE SUSEPECT ARRESTED.

His son had stopped taking any medication, and started to regard his father as the devil trying to kill him.

Jurors were told that expert psychiatrists will be called to tell them about Mellon’s mental state.

Her Honour Judge Christine Laing QC said: “You will decide whether the defendant was suffering a disease of the mind at the time we are concerned with, and whether he didn’t know that what he was doing was wrong by the standards of a reasonable and ordinary person.”

Mellon, formerly of Waterloo Street, Hove, denies attempted murder and possession of an offensive weapon. The trial continues.