A TRAINEE teacher accused of killing his sister-in-law was mentally ill at the time and should be cleared of murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility, a jury heard.

Mohammed Sayid, 49, is currently on trial at Chelmsford Crown Court following the death of mum-of-three Soabi Sayid, 29, at the home they shared in Hycliffe Gardens, Chigwell, in April last year.

The case has heard how Mr Sayid allegedly told police he strangled Mrs Sayid after she called him “stupid” for accidentally knocking her when he opened a kitchen door.

Today a medical expert for the defence, forensic psychiatrist Dr Neil Boast, told the court that Mr Sayid was not fully responsible for his actions because he was suffering from a temporary adjustment disorder at the time.

Dr Boast said the illness had been brought on in Mr Sayid following years of stress and frustration in his failure to get accepted onto school work placements as a trainee maths teacher, despite his good qualifications and excellent command of the English language.

Mr Sayid also suffered from a lifetime of health issues, including epilepsy, diabetes and severe skin problems, and he had been turned down from another placement just five days before the alleged murder.

Dr Boast said: “That final rejection was, if you like, the straw that broke the camel's back.”

He added: “For someone to call you stupid in ordinary circumstances would be a casual throw-away remark, but in the context of this case it was something else altogether...[what] the unfortunate victim said to him got to the core sense of his self-worth and self-esteem.”

But the prosecution, with the help of their own medical expert, challenged Dr Boast's diagnosis, saying it was based purely on Mr Sayid's versions of events.

Under cross examination Dr Boast said that Mr Sayid was not mentally ill when he examined him two months after the killing, and was not mentally ill now.

Prosecutor David Holborn said Mr Sayid had coped with previous rejections and no-one in the family had noticed anything different about his behaviour in the days and weeks leading up to the killing.

Mr Sayid denies murder.

The case continues.