A KILLER was last night ordered to be detained in a mental hospital – after stabbing his own mother.

Paranoid schizophrenic Jermaine Gilchrist, of Huddersfield, stabbed his mother to death while on bail for a knife attack on his ex-partner as she cradled their baby.

Drug addict Gilchrist, 36, plunged a blade into 58-year-old Beryl Gilchrist’s neck before calmly calling the police on the 999 system, and admitting what he had done.

Just weeks earlier, he had been released on bail in Huddersfield after being arrested for breaking into the home of Joanne Helm, 25, in the middle of the night and stabbing her in the shoulder.

Jurors at the Old Bailey took just 11 minutes to unanimously decide he had carried out the attacks after he was ruled to be unfit to enter pleas to charges of murder and wounding with intent.

Gilchrist, of North Street, Lockwood, was convicted of murder and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Ordering his detention in hospital under sections 37 and 41 of the Mental Health Act, Judge John Bevan QC said the circumstances of the stabbings were “frankly appalling”.

The judge said: “It is quite clear that part of the motive here was financial, but it is equally clear he has no concept of the enormous damage he has done.

“I am told that his condition, if it has changed, has not changed very much and he remains for the near future to be unfit to be tried.

“I have no doubt whatsoever that Jermaine Gilchrist is to be regarded as extremely dangerous, and, at present, a continuing threat”.

The killer, whose defence team presented no evidence during the two-day hearing, watched proceedings via video-link from high-security Rampton Hospital in Nottinghamshire.

Flanked by psychiatric nurses and care staff, he did not react as the jury’s decision was read out, and spoke only once to confirm his name.

Gilchrist, who initially denied the attacks, had since confessed to both stabbings in a taped police interview.

Zubair Ahmad, prosecuting, said he ran into Miss Helm while she was walking with their seven-month-old daughter in the town centre of Huddersfield on May 5, 2010.

The couple, who both lived in the town, had been in a relationship for around six years before splitting up in early 2009 while she was pregnant.

Miss Helm ignored him before returning to her home in Willow Lane East, Hillhouse.

Gilchrist followed her, letting himself in the back door with his old key, and told her he was going to stay.

Miss Helm then pretended to go to a corner shop to buy tobacco, but instead left the house and called the police.

Mr Ahmad said: “The police took him away and Miss Helm went back into her house and went to bed.

“But at about 4am in the morning, she woke up to find the accused entering her bedroom.

“He sat on the bed and started talking about their relationship, asked her if she wanted to be with him, and she just ignored him.

“The accused suddenly swung his right arm and hit her on the shoulder”.

The young mother, who was holding her baby daughter, felt a ‘sharp pain’ before realising she was bleeding, washing her wound in the bathroom and then returning to bed.

She called the police again the following morning, and went to hospital to have the superficial gash treated.

Gilchrist was arrested but bailed after telling police that Miss Helm was a liar. Less than a month later, on June 24, he arrived in central London after taking an overnight coach from Huddersfield.

He travelled to his mother’s home in Miller Street, Croydon, after buying a knife at a pound shop.

Police believe he may have demanded money for drugs and killed her when she refused.

The hearing was told that Gilchrist insisted he heard “a voice from God” telling him that his mother had to die.

Mr Ahmad said: “At 8.17pm that evening, the accused telephoned 999.

“He was asked what his emergency was and he said “murder”, and gave his name and the address where he was.

“’He was asked who was murdered and said “my mother – she’s dead, she’s lying in the front room. I killed her – she’s been stabbed to death”.

Police arrived at the house within minutes, where they discovered his mother’s body, dressed in a red top and denim skirt, lying in a pool of blood under a duvet in the living room.

A four-inch kitchen knife with a broken handle was found underneath the corpse, with a Holy Bible dumped on the floor close by.

Gilchrist said she had been dead “for about two hours”.

He was smoking a cigarette and ‘appeared relaxed’ as he was arrested, jurors heard.

On the day of the killing he had also sold his mothers’s mobile phone and charger for £25 at Croydon shop World Internet & Telecom.

Dr Kim Page, a consultant forensic psychiatrist at Rampton Hospital, earlier told the court Gilchrist suffered from ‘delusional beliefs influencing his perception, understanding and behaviour’.

She said he was likely to give evidence ‘which contained lies’, adding: ‘There hasn’t been a significant response to treatment so far, and in my opinion he remains the same.’

Gilchrist, a heroin and crack-cocaine user, had previously been jailed for five years in 2000 after carrying out another stabbing.

Other previous convictions included a court appearance for threatening behaviour in 1999, and another for theft and disorderly conduct in 2009.

Mrs Gilchrist, who had recently changed her name by deed poll to Nazarine Samuel, had celebrated her 58th birthday three days before her death.

The Jamaica-born divorcee, a mother-of-three, had recently been treated for cancer and ran a church group called Elelyon The House of Prayer For All Nations from her home.