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Scottish Charity Register No. SC043760

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Trial of Marble Arch murderer

April 11 2013
Killer had been hearing voices and trying to visit the queen

 

The Old Bailey has heard how a man killed a Scottish homeless person and later turned up at Buckingham Palace demanding to see the Queen.

Ghodratollah Barani strangled Mark Morrison, 46, originally from Dunblane, at Marble Arch, central London, in June and spent the next week repeatedly trying to see the monarch.

Barani had been to the palace before the killing and was twice taken to hospital but doctors thought he was feigning illness to advance his asylum application. He said he had been hearing voices telling him to kill someone to make him king. He believed the Queen would help him and when he was stopped at the north gate of Buckingham Palace, he said he was the king of Afghanistan.

The 27-year-old Afghan, who lived in Sheffield before arriving in London, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He was ordered to be detained in a secure hospital for an undefined period of time.

Barani had been taken to St Thomas's and Gordon hospitals after two previous attempts to enter the palace.

• If you're Scottish and homeless in London, or have friends who are, these are two organizations to know: http://www.scotscare.com and http://www.borderline-uk.org.

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