A YOUNG mum was stabbed 10 times by her knife-obsessed, schizophrenic brother, a court heard.

Mark Kitchen launched a “brutal and savage attack” on Sarah Melia at her home in Horwich.

Ms Melia, aged 34, suffered horrific injuries, including a punctured lung, diaphragm and liver, Manchester Crown Court was told yesterday. The prosecution allege the attack happened between 10.20am and 10.30am on January 14.

Ms Melia was found in a pool of blood by her 15-year-old daughter when she got home from school.

Gary Burrell, QC, prosecuting, said: “Mercifully, death would have come fairly rapidly from the wounds, but this was a forceable and sustained attack which cut through bones as well as tissue. It was a particularly brutal and savage attack.”

Police initially suspected Ms Melia’s ex-partner, James Christian, was responsible and he was arrested, but it later became clear that he was visiting probation officers in Helena Street, Bolton, at the time that Ms Melia was killed.

The focus then turned to a man wearing a distinctive red jacket and a hat, who was captured on CCTV in the Horwich area around the time of Ms Melia’s death.

The prosecution claim this man was Kitchen and told the jury a number of witnesses identified him.

His mother, Marion, saw footage taken from the CCTV camera on The Bolton News’ website and she was able to identify the man as her son from the way he walked, the court was told.

Kitchen, who denies murder, was identified by a number of other people who viewed the footage, including his aunt, Elizabeth Brown, and a community practice nurse, Dinah Frankland.

The prosecution claim Kitchen, aged 37, of Richard Gwyn Close, Westhoughton, carried a knife to the scene in a brown paper envelope. The envelope had been sent by TV Licensing just days earlier.

He knocked on the door and was let in by Ms Melia. The prosecution allege Kitchen then stabbed his sister six times in the back, piercing her right lung, diaphragm and liver. There were also four superficial stab wounds on the front of her chest and damage to her ribs.

The court heard that Ms Melia may have tried to escape her attacker by going upstairs and could have been pulled back down by her hair, as clumps were found on the stairs next to her body, along with the envelope.

Mr Burrell said Kitchen suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and had been a patient in a number of secure units where he had received treated for the illness, which required him to take prescribed drugs. He had also been known to take illegal drugs, including amphetamine, cannabis and heroin, the court heard On the morning of the killing, Kitchen tried to phone Valerie Wildman who, the court was told, had supplied him with drugs in the past.

His illegal drug habit had led to fall-outs with his mother and Ms Melia — who he had not spoken to for months — because they had reported to hospital authorities that he was taking a cocktail of prescribed and illegal drugs.

The combination of the legal and illegal substances had been known to make him violent and psychotic with paranoid delusions, said Mr Burrell.

The court heard Kitchen had a number of convictions which involved the use of knives. The prosecution claimed they stemmed from his obsession with blades.