A son flew into a rage and launched a fatal attack on his own father after a row about pigs. Tony Thomas kicked and stamped on his dad Dafydd while wearing steel toe capped boots.
The 45-year-old accepted that he violently attacked Dafydd but had denied his actions resulted in the subsequent death of the 65-year-old retiree. However today jurors unanimously decided that Thomas, who has a schizoaffective disorder and believes he played a crucial part in the fight against coronavirus, was guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
NorthWalesLive reports that Mold Crown Court had previously heard how the defendant became enraged following the dispute over a shipment of pigs coming to the family farm in Gwynedd. He dragged his dad from a pickup on the driveway of his father's house and launched the fatal attack. He claimed that his father, a former Gwynedd Environmental Waste Services director, was still alive when he left him in the road.
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Giving his own evidence during the trial, Thomas went so far as to blame his own stepmum and claimed she had delivered further injuries to her partner of 30 years after finding him on the drive before she alerted the emergency services. The prosecutor, however, said there was "not one scrap of evidence" to suggest anyone but the man in the dock was the one who carried out the killing.
Thomas - who due to his mental health condition genuinely believes his own levels of scientific brilliance were crucial in the fight against coronavirus - hung his head as he was told the verdict of his trial. It took the jury roughly three hours to make their decision.
Judge Rhys Rowlands, branding the situation a "truly awful tragedy", said that the defendant would be sentenced in the coming weeks, with a provisional date set for February 25. He told the court that he would need to wait for updated psychiatric reports. He said: "The attack, which had denied Dafydd Thomas of a long and happy retirement, stemmed from a chronic serious mental illness that had unfortunately gone under the radar."
Thomas, of Penrhyn Isaf in Minffordd, was initially on trial accused of murder or manslaughter of his father. However, on Wednesday, January 25, the murder charge was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service due to the diminished responsibility defence being proven by Thomas' legal representatives.
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