A University student who stabbed his retired detective stepfather to death was today cleared of murder after a court heard he was in a psychotic state brought on by his epilepsy.
Ben Moglione, 23, knifed Andrew McDiarmid, 64, at least 13 times after watching an episode of the BBC’s Panorama programme about knife crime.
He had been on trial at Liverpool Crown Court for the decorated police officer’s murder, but offered a guilty plea to an alternative charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Gordon Cole, prosecuting, said the plea had been accepted after consideration by the Crown Prosecution Service and jurors then found him not guilty of murder on the judge’s direction.
After sentencing was adjourned – with Moglione told he faces imprisonment, a hospital order or a combination of both – a close relative of Mr McDiarmid said the family had been left feeling ‘a minefield of emotions’.
Ben Moglione, 23, knifed Andrew McDiarmid, 64, at least 13 times after watching an episode of the BBC ‘s Panorama programme about knife crime (File Photo)
After sentencing was adjourned – with Moglione told he faces imprisonment, a hospital order or a combination of both – a close relative of Mr McDiarmid (pictured) said the family had been left feeling ‘a minefield of emotions’ (File Photo)
The court heard Moglione had been suffering with postictal psychosis – psychosis which occurs following a cluster of seizures – which meant he never intended to kill Mr McDiarmid.
His mother, Alison Moglione, 56, previously told jurors her usually ‘calm and placid’ son, who had been diagnosed with epilepsy aged around 18, had appeared ‘out of it’ immediately after the killing, in January 2022.
‘He was in a different place,’ she said. ‘He was living a seizure, that wasn’t Ben.’
Mrs Moglione, a senior civil servant with Liverpool City Council, discovered her husband, a former detective inspector who served with Merseyside police for 30 years, dead on their bed.
Judge Andrew Menary KC, the Recorder of Liverpool, discharged the jury and told Moglione, who is currently detained at a mental health hospital, that he will be sentenced in May.
His barrister, Anne Whyte, KC, had asked for the adjournment to allow Moglione’s neurologist to prepare a report which will then enable the psychiatrists to produce a further report.
Judge Menary said three psychiatrists agree that the defendant undoubtedly suffered from frontal lobe epilepsy.
The judge said symptoms can include hallucinations and the psychiatrists are of the firm conclusion he was suffering post-ictal psychosis ‘which explains how this very tragic event happened’.
Moglione had been on trial at Liverpool Crown Court for the decorated police officer’s murder, but offered a guilty plea to an alternative charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility (File Photo)
Mr Cole said the tragedy occurred at the couple’s £600,000 detached home, in the upmarket village of Heswall, Wirral, at around 8.30pm on January 24.
Moglione, a high achieving former grammar school pupil, who was on a break from his chemical engineering degree at Sheffield University, watched Panorama with his mother before telling her he was going to bed early.
But a short time later an internal CCTV camera captured Moglione walking downstairs from his bedroom in his dressing gown and slippers to collect a knife from the kitchen.
Audio captured by the same camera picked up Moglione asking his stepfather: ‘Hello. Are you alright?’
Mr McDiarmid, who had been isolating in his bedroom after testing positive for Covid, replied: ‘Yeah. Are you?’
Moglione then said: ‘No. Not really.’
Mr Cole said that ‘screams, groans and heavy breathing’ could then be heard.
Divorcee Mrs Moglione, who had been in the shower, said she jumped out after hearing a strange sound and her son came into the bathroom to wash his blood-soaked hands a short time later.
She said: ‘He said, “You can start again”. He said it in a strange way. I thought, “Oh my God”.
‘I started running to my bedroom and I saw Andy on our bed. There was blood and I could tell by his face that he had gone.
‘I knew I could not do anything so I ran downstairs. I dialled 999 for an ambulance and the police. In the meantime, Ben came down saying, “Mum don’t ring the police”.
Mrs Moglione said she took the knife off her son because ‘I thought he was going to hurt himself’.
She added: ‘I don’t think he knew what he had done. I was in complete and utter shock.’
Ben Moglione’s mother Alison, 56, previously told jurors her usually ‘calm and placid’ son, who had been diagnosed with epilepsy aged around 18, had appeared ‘out of it’ immediately after the killing, in January 2022 (File Photo)
Mrs Moglione claimed her son and husband, who had helped raise Moglione from the age of five, had a ‘brilliant’ relationship and were ‘very close’. They ‘loved each other’ and Moglione treated her husband like his biological father, she said.
But he had been diagnosed with epilepsy during his first year at university and had recently needed to switch his medication.
Mrs Moglione said he began having strong seizures, which last up to five minutes, after which he became ‘fixated’.
In the hours before the stabbing Mrs Moglione said she thought her son, an ‘intelligent’ former pupil at Calday Grange Grammar School for Boys, who played the cello in an orchestra, ‘didn’t sound right,’ but she didn’t want to ‘fuss’.
Mrs Moglione also told the court her husband was very talented. After retiring from the police in 2008 he had learned joinery and plumbing and ‘rebuilt our house,’ Mrs Moglione said.
She told the court: ‘(Ben) had never harmed a fly. We didn’t see this coming. I have lost my son and my husband.’
Mr McDiarmid, who has two children from a previous marriage, received a chief constable’s commendation in 2008 for his professionalism and dedication, including work reviewing unsolved serious sexual assaults which led to offenders being identified through advancements in DNA techniques.
