Jury rules son shot dead his own mother

A son shot dead his own mother in her Staffordshire home, a jury has ruled. Joseph Gray will now be detained in a secure hospital indefinitely.

It was found he killed Susan Gray at point-blank range with a shotgun. Jurors at Stafford Crown Court took seven-and-a-half hours to decide that the 23-year-old pulled the trigger. The court heard how Gray was suffering from "severe delusions".

He also had a history of mental problems and convictions for drugs, it was heard in court.

He was ruled unfit to stand trial on an allegation of murder. He was absent from court for almost all of the six-day trial in which the jury was asked only to decide whether or not he had committed the act of killing his 47-year-old mother, who was a childminder.

Judge Simon Tonking said: "This is a terribly sad case and nothing I say or do will bring back Susan Gray."

The judge ordered Gray, of Sandyford Court, be detained in a secure hospital and not released without permission of the Home Secretary. His mother was shot dead on October 27 last year at her home in Oxford Gardens, Stafford.

He was arrested later that day after her body was found by neighbours but showed little reaction when told she had been killed.

Officers searched Gray's green Mondeo and found seven unused .410 shotgun cartridges. At his flat, three pieces of wood were in the kitchen. When fitted together, they made up the stock of a .410 shotgun.

The jury had been told that Gray was "standoffish and aggressive" towards his mother.