A schizophrenic who killed his mother by knifing her in the heart in a row over the TV has been sentenced to an indefinite order at a secure hospital.

Retired children’s nurse Mariatu Nuni staggered into the garden of her Bradford home after the weapon was plunged seven inches deep into her chest, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Miss Nuni, who also suffered defensive injuries to her hands, had hit her son, John Makannah, on the head with a kitchen drawer as they argued over control of the TV remote.

Neighbours rushed to help Miss Nuni, 58, as she lay fatally injured in a pool of blood in the snow in January this year.

Makannah, 35, pleaded guilty to her manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The court heard that he was a chronic schizophrenic who suffered delusions of special powers.

Police were repeatedly called to reports of arguments at the house in Springwood Avenue, West Bowling, that Makannah shared with his mother and grandmother.

Prosecutor Jonathan Sharp told the court yesterday that Makannah, who was born in Sierra Leone, had been mentally ill since at least 1993.

He used cannabis daily in his home country and was admitted several times to a mental hospital. His father took him to a spiritualist and herbalist in a bid to cure him. His father died in 2005 and, in March last year, Makannah joined his mother and grandmother, Gbdada Tucker, in Bradford.

He had previously threatened his mother, who worked night shifts in a Bradford care home, saying she refused to give him money for beer.

At 11am on January 8, Makannah and his mother began a “trivial” quarrel over who was in control of the TV remote.

Mr Sharp said: “It rapidly escalated. The defendant armed himself with a knife and violently attacked his mother.”

Makannah struck her one forceful blow with a kitchen knife that caused a seven-inch-deep wound into her heart.

Mr Sharp said Makannah’s grandmother, who had limited mobility, was later found cowering, terrified, in the kitchen.

Neighbours, police officers and paramedics tried to save Miss Nuni but she suffered cardiac arrest and died shortly afterwards.

Makannah told his psychiatrist, Dr John Kent, his mother refused to give him £5. “The anger was boiling in me. I was depressed,” he said.

Judge James Goss QC made an order under The Mental Health Act, without limit of time.