‘Well brought-up’ drug user murdered mother outside family home, court told

An “affluent” and “well brought-up” drug user stabbed his mother to death outside their family home in the presence of his father, a murder trial jury was told.

The court heard that Gregor Bauld was 22 years old when he murdered his mother Christine Bauld in the street outside their house in The Coppice in Burbage, Leicestershire, on March 3.

Bauld, now 23, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and denied murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility at Leicester Crown Court on Wednesday, but a jury will be asked to decide based on the evidence whether he is guilty of the more serious offence of murder.

The defendant sat in the dock while Gordon Aspden KC, prosecuting, opened the case and said Mrs Bauld, 55, was “defenceless” in the attack after she was chased out of the four-bedroom detached house by her son.

“The Crown’s case is that on the morning of Sunday March 3 of this year, the defendant murdered his mother by attacking and stabbing her to death outside their family house.

“He admits he killed his mother unlawfully and is guilty of manslaughter, but denies that what he did amounts to the more serious crime of murder.

“He was a well brought-up young man with two loving parents who lived in a comfortable and relatively affluent home environment.

“However, as he got older and entered his early teens, his life became blighted by chronic drug abuse and associated mental health problems.”

The court was told that Bauld started using drugs when he was aged 13 or 14.

The prosecutor said paramedics arrived at the scene at 11.19 that morning where Mrs Bauld was in cardiac arrest and underwent emergency surgery “on the concrete” but was pronounced dead 37 minutes later.

Mr Aspden told the jury a pathologist determined Mrs Bauld’s cause of death as a stab wound to the back which penetrated the blood vessels supplying blood to her heart.

He added that Bauld’s father, who held his wife in his arms after the attack, was “severely traumatised” and in a “state of obvious shock”.

Police recovered a knife with a 12.5-inch blade in the family’s kitchen with “apparent blood staining”, the court was told.

The defendant is alleged to have answered the door to police officers following the attack and appeared “calm” and “somewhat subdued”.

Mr Aspden told the court that the defendant had been “in the grip of a destructive cycle of drug abuse” leading up to the incident, and that blood and urine samples showed “striking” traces of drugs, including LSD and ketamine.

The trial continues.