A British man was committed to a secure psychiatric hospital yesterday after being found guilty of manslaughter in the death of a Danish tattoo artist in the English town of Hassocks last year.
Kayden Smith, 28, killed Jan Jensen, 52, of Aalborg with a single stab wound in Smith’s apartment on August 9 of last year. Smith did not resist arrest when he was apprehended shortly after by local police officers outside his apartment building.
Lewes Crown Court accepted Smith’s not guilty plea for murder and his guilty plea for manslaughter through diminished responsibility and was sentenced to an indefinite stay at a secure psychiatric hospital.
Smith and Jensen met each other last summer at a psychiatric hospital where they were receiving treatment for mental health problems on a voluntary basis. Jensen was admitted after being found wandering around Gatwick Airport on July 19.
They were released from treatment on August 8 and they made their way to Smith’s apartment to spend the night.
“Clearly, Smith was suffering severe delusions and in the early afternoon of Thursday he stabbed Jensen who police officers found dead, sitting in a chair,” Ian Pollard of the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team said in a press release. “The death has left Mr Jensen's family in Denmark deeply distressed. The exact motive for his travel to the UK, where he arrived at Gatwick and went to London before coming back to Gatwick a couple of days later, will never be clear. But the tragic outcome has robbed them of their loved one and our thoughts are with them at this time."
