Son who beat his ‘beloved’ mom to dying jailed for seven years

A son who battered his ‘beloved’ mother to death with his fists while high on ketamine was jailed for seven years today.

Finn Henry, 21, had told friends he was ‘dancing with the devil’ shortly before he attacked and killed Suzanne Henry, 54, at their family home.

The moments before and after were caught on video, filmed by his mother on her mobile phone, who wanted to show her drug addicted son how he acted while high.

She was left ‘unrecognisable’ following the ‘sustained and lengthy assault’ by the experienced boxer and died two days later in hospital having suffered severe traumatic brain injury.

Henry was initially charged with murder, which he denied, before later pleading guilty to unlawful act manslaughter through intoxication of drugs.

Northampton Crown Court heard prosecutors had taken the unusual step of accepting the lesser plea after doctors concluded he was suffering from ‘delirium and psychotic symptoms’ brought about by the use of ketamine, cannabis and other drugs and did not intend to kill his mother but believed he was attacking the devil or a demon.

The court was told he had suffered an ‘adverse reaction’ and was acting ‘irrationally’ as a result of ‘confusion and excitement’ brought about by his use of drugs.

Before he was jailed his father Charles, a former prison officer, pleaded for clemency, saying his son was ‘not a bad lad’.

Mr Henry, who ran car dealership with his wife, said he had been left ‘shattered’ by her death at the family home in the village of Madeley, Staffs. but in his experience prisons did not have the ‘infrastructure, training and experience to deal with Finn’s needs and serves no purpose in his punishment or rehabilitation’.

He chocked back tears as he told the court: ‘You may wonder why we are supporting Finn here today… I know for fact that it is what Suzanne would want. Although the pain and heartache we feel is immense, we have got to find a way forward … Suzanne would want this for Finn. Finn’s pain is palpable knowing what he has done to the person he loved and adored most in the world’.

The court heard Henry had used cannabis from the age of 15 before becoming addicted to ketamine aged 19, using 10 grams over a weekend. His family and friends had begged him to stop, with his mother threatening to cut ties with him if he continued to use and sell drugs.

But prosecutor Maria Karaiskos said he was ‘strongly attracted to the positive effects, as though he had a lot of energy and felt he could do anything’. She said he acknowledged he would ‘become wound up more easily’ and his drug use had led to him losing his job after he attacked a co worker but he did not stop and had used drugs throughout the day he killed his mother.

Two hours before the attack, on May 1 last year, he was seen snorting white powder while driving his car to Tesco – most likely to be ketamine or MDMA and had also smoked cannabis, she said.

Friends told how he had been acting strangely and had spoken about the Matrix and apocalypse and that he was ‘dancing with devil’ and needed to ‘disappear’ before he did something he regretted. He later said he was going home to sleep it off.

At home his mother started filming him ‘most likely to show it to him when he sobered up’, Miss Karaiskos said. He was ‘excitable and loud’ and was jumping around and swearing and shouting out his own name before he ‘throws two punches towards the camera and the phone falls down’.

‘Six minutes later the phone captures his face and he is covered in blood,’ the prosecutor said.

Neighbours reported hearing a woman screaming with one saying it was so loud he could hear it even while wearing his headphones.

Henry then ran off and ended up naked in a nearby children’s home. He was arrested after neighbours reported seeing him act strangely in the street and answered no comment. He later asked a nurse who examined him if he could have her phone number adding it was ‘worth a try’.

Jailing him for seven years with an extended four-year licence Judge Rupert Mayo said it was rare for a plea of unlawful act manslaughter to be accepted but he was ‘happy to accept that conclusion’ following the doctors’ reports.

‘So I do sentence you on the basis that you were unlikely to form an intent to kill … because of the adverse effects of the drugs that you had taken. That does not mean you are excused from what you did… you took her life.’

He said his family had begged him not to desist but he chose to continue.

The judge told him he posed a ‘significant risk’ of committing further offences if he started taking drugs again.

‘Because of the history of your use of ketamine and the steps others took to persuade you not to buy drugs… I am sure you failed to address the issues of addiction and the gross over ingestion of drugs which you knew this drug in particular caused you to lose control and caused you to act violently and significantly out of character. You knew all of that,’ he told Henry.

The judge said it was a ‘sustained and multi focal attack’.

‘You are an experience boxer, you squared up and it was a lengthy assault in which she, I hate to say this, would have suffered considerably.’.

The judge said there was a risk of relapse the consequences of which will be ‘unpredictable and potentially life threatening’

He went on: ‘At present the risk in my judgement is extremely high and it is impossible to predict when that risk will diminish. You will need to engage in extensive psychological work and I am not satisfied that such work will be completed within the seven years and four months custodial term I therefore pass an extended sentence…’

He will serve up to two thirds in custody before he is eligible for release.

Ahmed Hossain KC, in mitigation, said Henry ‘lives with the horror of what he did every day’ and was ‘clearly highly remorseful and extremely distressed by what he has done’.

He said he ‘comes from a good, decent, caring, loving, supportive family and he is very fortunate that support remains’.

Mr Hossain told the court: ‘This case is the clearest demonstration of the the impact of the repeated consumption of illegal drugs can have in an immature and developing brain’ adding that the the age of full maturity in the brain of a young man was 25 years.