Heartbroken Lauren Santos has today told of her torment after the man that killed her beloved dad was cleared of murder by reason of insanity.
Lee Santos died after he was stabbed 59 times by stranger Andrew Peacock at a block of flats in Cullercoats, just two days before Christmas.
Mr Peacock had been charged with murdering the 45-year-old grandad.
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But last week he was cleared of the charge after a jury heard how psychiatrists said he had suffered an epileptic fit and he did not know what he was doing when he stabbed Lee.
The judge at Newcastle Crown Court described the case as "very rare".
And today Lee's grieving daughter has told of her anguish at learning how her father died.
The 25-year-old said: "I feel sort of lost. It was a case of being responsible but not guilty, It's really hard to get your head around it. It's very hard to take in and believe. You hear about people having epilepsy all the time but I have never heard about that being the result.
"We just have to trust that the medical experts have got it right."
Lee, from Killingworth had gone to the flats on John Street to visit his brother Paul Walker, who lived in the same block as Mr Peacock, on the afternoon of December 23 last year.
The two men decided to go to a local shop to buy some food and were walking through the lobby outside Mr Peacock's flat when he suddenly "pounced from his door and jumped on" Mr Santos, prosecutor Toby Hedworth KC told the court..
Mr Peacock then launched a frenzied attack during which he stabbed Lee repeatedly while shouting "you have been sitting in my house", the fact Lee had never met Mr Peacock or been inside his property.
Mr Walker desperately tried to pull the knifeman off his brother but he was overpowered, the court was told.
Two passing neighbours called the police, but when emergency services arrived nothing could be done to save Lee's life.
Mr Hedworth told the court that Mr Peacock had been suffering from frequent epileptic seizures in the weeks prior to December last year and they would often leave him in a confused state.
And at lunchtime on December 23 he had texted his partner to tell her he was feeling unwell and was going for a lie down.
His partner also confirmed that Mr Peacock didn’t take drugs and hadn’t consumed alcohol “for months” but had previously expressed paranoid thoughts to her that someone had been in his flat without his knowledge or permission, the court heard.
Four separate forensic psychiatrists who each examined Mr Peacock after his arrest concluded that he had been suffering from “postictal confusion and amnesia”, as well as “postictal psychosis” at the time of the stabbing, so was unaware of what he was doing.
The condition causes a temporary impairment of the conscience as a result of “paranoid delusions and either auditory hallucinations or misjudgement of sounds”, prosecutors said.
Mr Peacock, of John Street, in Cullercoats pleaded not guilty to murdering Lee by reason of insanity, which was accepted by both the prosecution and defence, but a jury had to legally decide if that is the case.
On Friday they took just minutes to return a not guilty verdict by reason of insanity and the 44-year-old was made subject to a hospital order ahead of his sentencing.
The verdict has left Lee's loved ones feeling numb and Lauren says she is now tortured by the fact that things could have turned out differently for her dad.
"It just feels like my dad was in the wrong place at the wrong time," she said. "It goes round my head everyday that thing could have been different.
"It's just very hard to process. Every day I just think; 'maybe if he wasn't there,' but unfortunately that's not how it's worked out."
Before the jury retired, Judge Penny Moreland told them: “This is a very rare case. Mr Peacock is entitled to be found not guilty by reason of insanity if, at the time of the killing of Mr Santos, he was suffering from a disease of the mind, which gives rise to defect of reason so as he didn’t know the nature or quality of his act or that it was legally wrong.”
The judge added: “It’s agreed that, in a postictal state, he suffers from confusion and amnesia and temporary paranoid psychosis. It is agreed that these defects of reason are caused by his epilepsy.
“Andrew Peacock did not know the nature or quality of his act and did not know that what he was doing was wrong.”
Mr Peacock was given a hospital order under section 37 of the Mental Health Act with a restriction order under section 41. He was remanded in custody until July 20 for the judge to confirm sentencing.
And while Lauren remains devastated by the way her dad died, she is hopeful that the verdict means Mr Peacock will now be unable to harm anyone else.
"I think that's the only way it could have gone," she said. "At least this means he can't hurt anyone else.
"Now he's getting the help he needs so he can't hurt anyone else., but it took for my dad to die for that to happen.
"But if he had got help sooner none of this would have happened."
