A WINCHMORE Hill man heard voices in his head telling he “had to” kill his grandmother, a court has heard.

Jack Langlands claims he was suffering from paranoid psychosis when he attacked 83-year-old Doris Langlands, stabbing her repeatedly in the head before stamping on her as she lay on the ground.

The 27-year-old, who is standing trial for murder, told a jury at the Old Bailey this afternoon he believed at the time his other grandmother had instructed him to carry out the killing.

He said: “In my head, she was telling me to go and do it – she woke me up and told me I had to go and do it.

“She wasn't saying it but she wanted me to do it. In my head, I knew she was like 'yeah, you've got to go and do it'.

“I didn't know why I did it, I just felt it had to be done.”

Mr Langlands had been staying with Mrs Langlands on and off for around five months at her home in Green Dragon Lane before he killed her on Easter Saturday last year, in a “brutal and frenzied attack” the court was told.

He told the jury about the moment he carried out the attack, pulling a knife from the kitchen drawer as his grandmother stood at the sink making some food.

He said: “I just stabbed her quickly so it was done, I had to do it but I didn't know why.

“I stabbed her about six times in the head, and to make sure she didn't feel it, as she fell on the floor I kicked her in the head.”

Mr Langlands was a heavy drug and alcohol user, sometimes sinking ten pints a day and taking half a gram of cocaine, and was also taking prescription drugs similar to Valium in the months leading up to the killing.

He said he had stopped using cocaine at the start of March after he became convinced he had got cancer and people could “see it in his eyes”.

After the killing, Mr Langlands locked the back door behind him and dropped the key down a drain, he threw the knife over a hedge in an alleyway, and disposed of his blood-stained coat in a nearby lake.

He then took the train to Leicester Square to be in a crowded place, he said, and went to the London Eye and Big Ben, before travelling back to Enfield to stay the night at his other grandmother's house, as Mrs Langlands' body lay undiscovered.

He said: “It was horrible, I didn't know what to do. My Nan was lying dead on the floor in the kitchen, and I was thinking 'what am I going to do'.”

He admitted making efforts to evade capture and dispose of his blood stained clothing, and denied everything to police when he was eventually captured four days later in Peterborough.

When challenged by the prosecution, Mr Langlands denied being drunk on the day of the attack, but admitted he was angry that day having been denied a visa to move to America to rejoin his family three days earlier.

Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, suggested he went to see his grandmother, who had previous told him she wanted him to move out, to get money, as she had given him around £30,000 since he turned 18.

But Mr Langlands denied that was the motive for the visit, saying: “I went there to go and kill her.”

Mr Langlands denies murder, but admits manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The trial continues.