Man admits killing teenage sunbather

Rosie died five hours after being knifed by Kainth

A mentally ill man has admitted stabbing to death a 16-year-old sunbather in front of horrified shoppers in the centre of Birmingham.

Inderjit Kainth, 44, denied murdering student Rosemarie Ross but pleaded guilty to manslaughter due to dimished responsibility.

He was ordered at Birmingham Crown Court on Monday to be detained indefinitely at Ashworth top security hospital in Liverpool.

You represent a serious danger to the public and are likely to do so for the foreseeable future

The judge, Mr Justice Eady

The court heard that Kainth believed his life was in danger from Birmingham education authority and the civil service and the only way he could save himself was by killing a woman.

He had spent weeks before the stabbing carrying a "dagger of revenge".

Kainth sat down beside Rosemarie and a 16-year-old friend as they lay sunbathing on a wall on a Saturday afternoon in May in the city's busy Centenary Square.

He pulled out the kitchen knife - which was inside a shampoo bottle - and stabbed the innocent victim, who died from "massive haemorrhaging" five hours later in hospital.

Maximum security

Rosemarie, who had been due to finish school and was going to study art at college, had been relaxing after a shopping trip.

Kainth had been examined by psychiatrists, all of whom agreed he was a paranoid schizophrenic who was suffering from delusions.

The judge, Mr Justice Eady, ordered Kainth, of Uplands Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, to be detained "without length of time and with maximum security".

Centenary Square, where the attack happened

"It is now obvious ... that you represent a serious danger to the public and are likely to do so for the foreseeable future."

The judge said Kainth, a divorced father-of-five, would only be released if the Home Secretary or a mental health review panel were satisfied that it was suitable.

A West Midlands Police spokesman said afterwards: "The tragedy which occured was from out of the blue.

"We have heard that he may have suffered from delusions for some years.

Parents distraught

"He was able to contain those and when anyone is is considering his released that is perhaps the most concerning part.

"He was able to function with these thoughts in his head without giving signals to people."

The dead teenager's parents were too upset to face the media when they left court but in a statement, they spoke of the "devastation" Rosie's death continued to inflict on them.