A man accused of murdering the millionaire hotelier Sir Richard Sutton told police to shoot him after leading officers on a 135mph car chase.
Thomas Schreiber, of Gillingham, Dorset, is on trial accused of murdering the 83-year-old baronet and the attempted murder of his mother, and Sir Richard’s partner, Anne Schreiber, 66, on April 7, 2021.
The 35-year-old previously admitted the manslaughter of Sir Richard and pleaded guilty to driving a Range Rover dangerously on the A303, A4 and M3.
He denies the murder of Sir Richard and the attempted murder of his mother.
On Wednesday, Adam Feest QC, prosecuting told Winchester Crown Court that Schreiber triggered ANPR camera’s while driving Sir Richard’s Range Rover on the A303 near Stone Henge.
He led officers on a 135mph car chase which only came to an end when police carried out a ‘hard stop’ on the vehicle in Chiswick in West London.
Mr Feest said: ‘Once the Range Rover had been forced to stop, the defendant remained in the driver’s seat but appeared to be stabbing himself with a knife.
‘In order to prevent further injury to him, the police tasered him, making him drop the knife.
‘They then quickly dragged him out of the vehicle and restrained him.’
Mr Feest said Schreiber shouted out to police: ‘Shoot me, I don’t want to live.’
He later admitted to medics that he had stabbed his mother and Sir Richard and reportedly said: ‘I was drunk and just snapped.’
Mr Feest said Schreiber told police that ‘he loves his mother and Sir Richard and although the break-up of his parents’ marriage made him feel not great, you have to move on’.
In a phone call from prison to his sister Louisa Schreiber, he said that ‘it had been complete madness, he had lost control, it wasn’t him but… demons’.
The trial previously heard how Ms Schreiber had moved in with Sir Richard in 2003, after separating from the defendant’s father, David Schreiber who died in April 2013.
Schreiber reportedly ‘harboured a significant and sustained feeling of resentment towards both his mother and Sir Richard’.
Mr Feest said Schreiber felt ‘he was treated differently by his mother and Sir Richard as compared to his two sisters, particularly with regards to financial arrangements’.
He said: ‘The persistence of these emotions, the hatred which they engendered towards Sir Richard and Anne in the mind of the defendant, and the spotlight which was cast on them by the defendant’s enforced presence at Moorhill during lockdown in early 2021, were all significant factors in the explosion of violence by the defendant which took place on the eighth anniversary of his father’s death.’
A post-mortem examination of Sir Richard’s body and an investigation of the ‘extensively blood-stained scene’ suggested that he was attacked downstairs at the house.
The examination found Sir Richard suffered three deep wounds to his face as well as five stab wounds to his chest, up to 12cm deep. He also suffered wounds to his hands and arms.
Ms Schreiber was found by police severely injured in the kitchen of the property.
She suffered up to 15 separate wounds including one which had affected her spinal cord and caused life-changing injuries.
Mr Feest said: ‘She recalls that the defendant lifted the knife up and must have stabbed her, although she does not recall actually being stabbed but does remember looking at the knife in her and being surprised that it did not hurt more, and saying something like “what are you doing?”
‘Anne described this experience as feeling like a bystander looking through a window.
‘At some point she recalled that Sir Richard came into the room shouting and screaming.
‘This appeared to make the defendant more agitated and he stabbed his mother again.
‘Anne could not recall what happened to Sir Richard after that, but does remember the defendant going behind her and stabbing her in the back.
‘That was the last thing she knew,’ Mr Feest said.
Joe Stone QC, defending Schreiber, told the jury that the defendant denies the murder of Sir Richard saying that he was of a diminished state of mind at the time or that he experienced a ‘loss of control’.
The trial has been adjourned until Thursday.
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