Category Archives: Diminished Responsibility

A killer who shot dead an Indian student in a random attack in Salford has a personality disorder and is emotionally crippled, a criminal profiler has told a jury.

Professor Nigel Eastman, an experienced forensic psychiatrist, also admitted to feeling unusually “concerned” while interviewing Kiaran Stapleton in a room at HMP Manchester.

Stapleton, 21, who gave his name as Psycho at an earlier hearing, admits killing Anuj Bidve, 23, in Ordsall, Salford, in the early hours of Boxing Day last year.

Mr Bidve, a complete stranger to Stapleton, was walking through Ordsall with eight fellow Indian students when Stapleton approached, asked the time, then pointed a gun to his victim’s head and pulled the trigger.

On Wednesday Manchester Crown Court heard psychologists and psychiatrists had assessed the defendant and all agreed he had an anti-social personality disorder.

Prof Eastman, a defence witness, interviewed Stapleton, being held on the category A prisoners section at Strangeways, to build up a profile of the defendant.

“I’m rarely made anxious by the defendants but unusually for me there was a point at which I became a bit concerned,” Prof Eastman said. “I had three officers outside, I’m long in the tooth but there was just something going on I was a bit concerned about at one point.”

Prof Eastman told the court Stapleton had shown no remorse for his reactions because he did not fully understand what he had done.

“This defendant did not display an ability to think about emotions. It’s a little bit like someone with Aspergers, by analogy. It is a disability of feeling and emotion, having a language of emotion or internal language of thinking about emotions. I have not seen any evidence in my interview or reading or seeing his evidence, I have seen no evidence of any real understanding of the emotional significance of what he’s done.”

The trial was adjourned until Thursday.