Bexleyheath murder accused Nicola Edgington: 'Last time I was feeling like this I killed my mum'

The 32-year-old mental patient is accused of murdering Sally Hodkin, 58, and attempting to murder then 22-year-old Kerry Clark in a pair of random Bexleyheath knife attacks on the morning of October 10, 2011.

The defendant began making panicked emergency calls from a pay phone in A&E at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich from around 4.45am on the day of the stabbings, a jury at the Old Bailey heard.

In one call she begged the operator: "I need the police to come please.

"I am a paranoid schizophrenic and my doctors say when I'm scared I'm very dangerous.

"I need to be able to be somewhere I can lock a door."

Breathing heavily a tearful Edgington added: "You know the last time I was feeling like this I killed my mum.

"The people here are going to hurt me.

"Look, they are going to drag me inside and f**k me up."

The court heard from psychiatric nurse Hakim Buampong who assessed Edgington at the Oxleas House mental health unit at QEH at around 5.30am that Monday.

He said: "She told me she had not slept for weeks.

"She reported feeling scared and paranoid that other people are going to hurt her.

"She reported a lot of different voices telling her a lot of different things."

Despite this the patient appeared calmer so Mr Buampong left her on her own, returning to check on her occasionally, the court was told.

Defending, John Cooper QC asked Mr Buampong: "So your mind was put at rest when she said 'I'm actually ok at the moment'?"

The nurse responded: "Not put at rest, but she showed no signs of harming anybody or harming herself.

"The way she was presented did not mean she was about to kill somebody at that particular time."

At 7.05am Edgington left Oxleas House and took two buses to Bexleyheath before murdering Mrs Hodkin with a stolen meat cleaver, the jury heard.

She denies one charge of murder and one of attempted murder.

The trial continues.