'Michelle was clever, kind, generous and warm...her loss is unbearable'

JUDGE PAYS TRIBUTE TO GRAN KILLED AT RANDOM IN STREET AS SHE CALLS PROCEEDINGS ‘DEEPLY INADEQUATE' FOR FAMILY

- AMY WALKER

A MAN who stabbed a beloved mum to death in broad daylight with a knife he bought from Asda has been handed a hospital order.

Paul Hughes, 30, had bought the weapon just 40 minutes before he brutally attacked Michelle Hodgkinson as she walked past him in Droylsden.

He had been lying in wait' on a bridge on Edge Lane when Ms Hodgkinson, 51, walked past him on the way to meet her mum for a coffee.

Hughes brutally attacked Ms Hodgkinson, stabbing her to death. He then flung the knife over a nearby fence and went home. He was arrested hours later.

Following a finding of fact trial at Minshull Street Crown Court, jurors found he had committed the act of unlawfully killing Ms Hodgkinson. He was previously found unfit to stand trial due to a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.

Giving evidence at his sentencing hearing, consultant psychiatrist Dr Olivia Tappin, the treating clinician for Hughes at the Ashworth High Security Hospital, confirmed that he was currently prescribed Clozapine at 'well above normal therapeutic levels.

"Unfortunately there has only been a small improvement in his mental state and presentation," she said.