TRIAL UPDATE: Jury is out on Frankum case
7:34pm Fri 29th Aug 08:: written by Luke Cross
The jury is out to decide whether Benjamin Frankum killed Daniel Quelch at his parents' home in Littlewick Green in August last year.
Prosecution and defence barristers made their closing statements at Reading Crown Court this afternoon.
Paranoid schizophrenic Frankum, 26, was found covered in blood at the house in Cherry Garden Lane on the morning of August 23 last year.
The body of Mr Quelch was found in the house and had been stabbed 82 times, the court heard.
Frankum originally told police that he had been ordered by MI5 to kill Mr Quelch, but later changed his story to say a gang from his home town of Littlehampton, West Sussex, were behind the killing and that he had in fact tried to help the landscape gardener.
Prosecuting Nigel Daly said he could not be sure whether Frankum's new story was a delusion or whether Frankum had 'simply come to his senses and realised what he has done and is trying to somehow rationalise it within his mind'.
Mr Daly told the jury that they may not be certain about every detail in the case, but they must be sure that Frankum did the act.
Miranda Moore, defending, cast doubt over the sequence of events and three 'categories' of evidence - including the forensic evidence, pointing out a lack of Mr Frankum’s prints in the house.
She also questioned the lack of eye witnesses and Frankum's video confession, made to police on August 23.
She also questioned the lack of eye witnesses and Frankum's video confession, made to police on August 23.
Ms Moore said there was an element of 'having your cake and eating it' in the prosecution's case by saying Frankum was severely mentally ill but then accepting his police confession to be the truth.
She said Frankum’s account that he been in the middle of the attack was as ‘equally explicable’ as Frankum actually being the killer.
The case continues.
The case continues.
There will be more on the case as it unfolds next week.
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