Dawlish News

A psychotic Barnstaple man who stabbed to death a stranger outside Tesco in 2018 was suffering from a mental illness so severe that he did not have full control of his actions at the time the killing. Kevin Gale, also known as Kit Kat, was hearing voices and exhibiting bizarre behaviour before launching the fatal attack on Lee Turner in the supermarket car park.

In the months before the tragedy he disengaged from mental health services in North Devon and stopped taking his medication for paranoid schizophrenia. Doctors say he was so ill at the time that his actions were 'wholly attributable' to his medical condition.

Mr Turner, 39, died after a Spider-Man throwing knife was plunged into his back four times during the random attack. He had gone to the Tesco Express in Barnstaple to buy milk and collapsed into the arms of a worker, saying 'Why me?'

Gale, 54, received treatment under the Mental Health Act at Langdon Hospital in Dawlish after a court hearing in 2019 found he was responsible for the killing. At the time he was deemed not fit to stand trial.

He later entered a guilty plea to manslaughter by diminished responsibility.