A MENTALLY ill man who cut his neighbours’ internet cable after going round with an axe and threatening to turn off their Wi-Fi has been made the subject of a Hospital Order.

Paul Denby was found unfit to plead or stand trial at Bradford Crown Court in April and the jury found that he did the act of breaching a restraining order in September last year.

Denby, 49, who formerly lived in the Bankfoot area of Bradford but is now in the city’s Lynfield Mount Hospital, had previously been to the couple’s home with an axe threatening to turn off their Wi-Fi and electronic devices, the court heard.

Last September, the victims were asleep at night when awoke to hear sawing noises and Denby was outside. The TV aerial had been cut and soon afterwards he severed the internet cable.

He was interviewed by the police but did not make any sense, the court was told.

Denby had been in Lynfield Mount Hospital since last month suffering with a psychotic illness.

He had a history of paranoid delusions, instituted by drugs consumption, and suffered auditory hallucinations, Recorder Paul Reid stated.

He had served a short jail sentence for criminal damage, breach of a restraining order and having an offensive weapon in relation to the axe incident.

After he was released on licence, he committed the further offence in September.

Recorder Reid said that Denby had previously been detained under the Mental Health Act.

In 2021, he stopped taking his medication, refused to engage with mental health services and believed he was being persecuted.

There had since been ‘a dramatic decline’ in his mental health and psychiatrists recommended that he is treated in a low security hospital where a bed is available.

Recorder Reid found that Denby is suffering from a mental disorder and that he should be transferred to the hospital.