A MAN who allegedly murdered his wife with a slegehammer had a mental illness caused by suffering he endured during his childhood in Uganda, a court heard.

George Kibuuka admits hitting his wife Margaret twice with the hammer and slitting her throat as she lay sleeping next to one of their children, jurors have heard.

Yesterday Winchester Crown Court heard from two experts who had assessed Kibuuka’s state of mind.

Forensic psychiatrist Dr Jan Vermeulen, giving evidence on behalf of the defence, said he thought Kibuuka’s childhood, in which he claims he was sexually abused, led to behavioural problems and the development of an abnormal personality. He said Margaret was Kibuuka’s first long-lasting relationship. He was desperate to avoid being abandoned by his wife and the situation had “reawakened all the traumas he had experienced as a young child”.

The court heard that Kibuuka’s mother told Dr Vermeulen her son had sustained a head injury as a child when soldiers attacked his grandmother’s house during civil unrest in Uganda.

During interviews with Dr Vermeulen, Kibuuka claimed that he was raped when he was eight years old and sexually abused over the next three years, as he grew up in his native country.

The 48-year-old also claimed his father hit him when in a drunken state, jurors were told.

Dr Vermeulen said: “He was abandoned by his mother, abandoned by his father, passed on from relative to relative.”

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He went on to tell the court how Kibuuka had said he had been “possessed by ancestral gods” for as long as he could remember and that “the spirits took over”.

In conclusion Dr Vermeulen said in his report: “At the time his violence was driven by severe dissociative symptoms, depression and an abnormal personality.”

He said that the emergence of psychotic symptoms in March this year, within six months of the alleged offence, suggests he may have been suffering with early symptoms of psychosis in November 2009.

However, forensic psychiatrist Dr Richard Badcock, for the prosecution, said in his opinion Kibuuka’s achievements in life and long-standing employment were not consistent with patients he had seen with personality disorders, who would never be able to establish a personal relationship over a number of years, bring up children or hold down a job.

Dr Badcock said in his opinion people with a personality disorder show it whether things are going well or not.

“I do think he was depressed but I think that depression was a result of losing control of the situation.

“He was angry about the changes in the dynamic of the relationship.

“He felt the balance of power had transferred from him to his wife and that was what made him angry.”

Kibuuka denies murdering his wife Margaret at their home in Richville Road, Shirley, and three counts of drugging their children to enable him to carry out the killing in November last year.

The trial has been adjourned until Monday.

Proceeding.