A man of beheaded an elderly woman in her north London garden has been found not guilty of murder on grounds of insanity.

Nicholas Salvador, 25, killed 82-year-old Palmira Silva in September an attack of “extraordinary brutality” in September last year.

Salvador believed he was seeing demons as he ran wild through a number of gardens in Edmonton and killed two cats in the minutes leading up to the attack.

Recorder of London Nicholas Hilliard QC told Salvador:

“It is established beyond any doubt that you killed Mrs Silva in an attack of extraordinary brutality and ferocity…You thought you were encountering some demonic force which had taken on a human form. You could not have been more deluded.”

During the trial at the Old Bailey, two psychologists agreed that Salvador was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia when he committed the act. He attacked Silva believing that she was either a demon in the form of an old lady or Adolf Hitler back from the dead.

The verdict of not guilty on the grounds on insanity means that Salvador will now be detained indefinitely in a psychiatric hospital.