A MAN who admitted battering to death his own father, a former Huddersfield journalist, has been committed to a mental hospital.
Joseph Cooper violently beat his father Winton on April 15, 2011, at the Dorset cottage they shared.
The 24-year-old admitted manslaughter through diminished responsibility at a hearing last year.
Under the order imposed yesterday, Joseph can be discharged from hospital only with the consent of the Secretary of State for Justice or by a Mental Health Tribunal.
The intensity of the attack was such that the handle of a hammer was broken. Three kitchen knives and a pair of large secateurs were also used to inflict appalling injuries on Mr Cooper.
The 64-year-old was discovered by police at the cottage in the picturesque Dorset village of Marnhull, near Sturminster Newton.
His son denied murder but his guilty manslaughter plea was accepted by the prosecution after reports found he was mentally ill.
Former journalist Mr Cooper was found on the 22nd anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, which he had reported on in 1989.
He had been a well-known figure in Huddersfield for many years.
He worked as a news reporter and feature writer on the Examiner in the late 1960s and very early 1970s and lived in Honley.
He then moved to Sheffield and later became a well-known broadcaster on BBC Radio Sheffield.
Former colleagues described him as “brilliant company and a great raconteur”.
He went on to have a distinguished career with BBC Radio Sheffield and covered many major news stories including Hillsborough.
Mr Cooper leaves two other sons: Oliver and Edward. Joseph is his middle son.
His ex-wife, Helen, still lives in Huddersfield.
Mr Cooper moved to Dorset after his retirement to look after his elderly father and eventually his son came to stay.
The pair lived a “peaceable existence” in the village until Joseph attacked his father with a bar in December 2009, afterwards pleading guilty to actual bodily harm.
On that occasion Mr Cooper had barricaded himself into his bedroom after his son “lost it”.
Joseph launched the fatal attack on his father on the landing of their home just hours after his father told neighbours his son “was acting strangely”.
After the killing, Joseph phoned his brothers and mother Gail to say he had killed his father.
He said he acted in self-defence after his father attacked him with knives because he had made a noise, but forensic examination of the scene showed this did not “hold water’’ the court heard.
Two psychiatric reports found Joseph Cooper suffered from such an abnormality of mind it had impaired his responsibility for his actions.
