Why was she freed to kill again? Woman released after stabbing her own mother is jailed for 37 years for decapitating a grandmother in the street

• Nicola Edgington killed Sally Hodkin in Bexleyheath, south east London 
  
• She also attacked 22-year-old Sally Clark who managed to fight her off
• She had made five 999 calls asking to be sectioned earlier that day
• But she walked out of a mental health clinic and killed Mrs Hodkin 
  

By STEVE NOLAN

PUBLISHED: 14:05 GMT, 4 March 2013 | UPDATED: 17:51 GMT, 4 March 2013

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.

FULL STORY: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2287883/Nicola-Edgington-Wo...