A 25-year-old man stabbed his bedbound grandfather to death after learning of child sex abuse allegations against the pensioner, a court has heard.
Ben Oliver, of Bexleyheath, south London, is accused of murdering David Oliver, 74, in his home in nearby Mottingham on January 19 last year.
Jurors at the Old Bailey were told he had become ‘very angry’ after finding out a few months earlier that his granddad had been accused of historic sexual abuse of girls.
The 74-year-old was also said to have mistreated his wife and had extramarital affairs, but became immobile after suffering a stroke a few years ago.
Prosecutors said the younger man had also become ‘troubled and angry’ after a ‘difficult’ upbringing, and had himself been convicted of sexual offences against a young girl when he was 15 years old.
He was sent to a youth detention centre after his conviction in 2016 and was released in September 2019, the court was told.
On the morning of the incident, the 25-year-old was said to have suddenly picked up a kitchen knife, walked into his granddad’s bedroom and ‘brutally’ knifed him several times in the head.
Prosecutor Louis Mably QC told jurors: ‘He was attacked and killed as he lay helpless in bed, in his bedroom on the first floor of the house.
‘He had been repeatedly stabbed and slashed with a knife in the face, and in particular in the neck, which had effectively been cut open.
‘It was a brutal attack, plainly carried out with the intention of killing him.’
The younger man immediately told his grandmother what he had done and does not deny killing the older man, the prosecutor added.
Mr Mably said the defendant’s case was that he was guilty only of manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility, and that jurors would have to weigh up his mental state at the time.
Ben Oliver denies murder and the trial continues.
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