HE feared his soul had been contaminated by a death touch and unless he urgently returned home to be cleansed, he would die.

Sailor’s cook Tam Pui then took revenge on another seaman who had delivered the Kung Fu-style blow by stabbing him to death.

Pam, 48, was however mentally ill and his belief irrational.

He was serving on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel, Empire Gull, when he told fellow seamen that Lok Ho Yin had struck him.

He began complaining of headaches and chest pains, and the captain arranged for him to be seen by doctors in Antwerp and Southampton.

After the ship docked at Marchwood on September 6, 1975, Tam went to Southampton and bought three knives, one of which he used on Lok after chasing him through the galley.

He struck him six times, with one of the blows penetrating his heart.

He later told police: “I admit I killed him. I have taken my revenge. He dies first and I die later.”

The following February Pam denied murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, which the prosecution accepted.

Psychiatrist Howard Galton told Winchester Crown Court Tam was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and recommended his admittance to a mental hospital, preferably in his home country of Hong Kong where there would be no communication problems in his treatment.

J Hampton Inskip QC defending, said: “He had been very anxious for some time to get back to Hong Kong so that the death touch he believed to have been placed on him could be removed.”

Mr Justice Ackner ordered him to be detained at Broadmoor Hospital until arrangements over to his transfer to the Colony could be finalised.