A jury has retired to consider whether Brighton restaurant boss Sue Addis was murdered by her grandson Pietro Addis when he stabbed her in the bath at her home in January 2021.
Pietro Addis, 19, has admitted killing Mrs Addis but denied murder, pleading guilty to manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility.
Judge Christine Laing, the honorary recorder of Brighton and Hove, sent the jury out shortly after 11am today (Thursday 2 March) at Lewes Crown Court after summing up the evidence.
The judge focused today on the evidence given by the expert witnesses, consultant forensic psychiatrists Peter Misch and Duncan Harding.
Yesterday the judge started the day by giving legal directions to the jury before Rossano Scamardella, prosecuting, and Sarah Elliott, defending, made their closing speeches.
The judge then started her summing up of “a deeply sad case”, adding: “Mrs Addis was a warm and generous person who was supportive of her family and would do anything for them.”
Pietro Addis, of Radinden Manor Road, Hove, was 17 when he killed Mrs Addis who ran Donatello, in Brighton Place, and Pinocchio, in New Road, both in Brighton.
The judge told the jury that the teenager had used cannabis and other drugs including more than the prescribed dose of Elvanse, his medicine for ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).
She said: “Drug usage was undoubtedly an issue.”
It was the subject of family arguments – but Pietro Addis’s drug use had dropped before he stabbed his grandmother 17 times in the bath at Cedars Gardens, Brighton.
Referring to the experts’ evidence, the judge said: “Neither of them dispute the effect that drugs were having on the defendant.”
But they were not the primary factor, according to the evidence, the judge added.
