The father of a 7-year-old girl who was stabbed to death by a complete stranger—an illegal immigrant from Albania who was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia—has criticised the Home Office for failing to deport her before she committed the crime.
On Monday a coroner said Emily Jones’s death at the hands of 33-year-old Eltiona Skana could never have been predicted, but the head of a charity that deals with victims of mental health homicide has said that was “absolute nonsense.”
Skana was sitting on a bench in Queen’s Park, Bolton, on March 22, 2020—which happened to be Mother’s Day—when Jones rode past on her scooter.
She got up and slashed Jones with a craft knife, calling out, “Mummy, Mummy!” to the girl’s mother.
Skana went on trial for murder in December 2020 but the trial collapsed and she was detained indefinitely at Rampton Hospital in Nottinghamshire.
After an inquest, Timothy Brennand, the senior coroner for Manchester West, said Jones “may well feel and is entitled to feel” Skana should never have been allowed into the United Kingdom.
Read more: Father of Girl, 7, Murdered by Albanian Schizophrenic Furious at Home Office
