Higher Walton man tells court he 'went into a frenzy' and cannot remember viciously stabbing parents to death
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Lee Tipping killed his parents Anthony Tipping and Patricia Livesey at their family home in Cann Bridge Street on November 20 2021, shortly after the couple returned from a night out.
The 36-year-old, who admits manslaughter but denies murder, told Preston Crown Court today: “I went into a frenzy. (My mum) was trying to calm me down. The problem was I didn’t know it was her. It was only when I slowed down and sat down with my head in my hands that I realised it was my mum.”
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Hide AdTipping claims he acted in self defence when he knifed his father, Anthony, 165 times following an argument, and that he burned his face with a lighter and aerosol to ‘warn him off’.
He said: “I was defending myself, and there was a battle going on between me and him.”
When asked by David McLachlan, prosecuting, why he continued to stab his father after he was dead, he replied: “I didn’t know if he was dead or not.”
The crown claims that Tipping turned on his ‘loving’ mother because she was a witness, and he had told police he ‘didn’t want to be arrested’.
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Hide AdBut Tipping said that he lied to police about remembering the incident when he was apprehended and in subsequent police interviews because ‘if (he) didn’t make up a story they would make one up for (him)’.
He said: “I don’t really have a high opinion of the police and I was in a bad mood. I was just in a rage. Police had arrested me. They were actually quite rough with me. I’ve never had any previous convictions.”
Tipping and parents had troubled relationship
Throughout the hearing, the jury heard how Anthony Tipping and Patricia Livesey had struggled with their son, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, OCD and anxiety.
Tipping said his father had been ‘bullying him all his life’, and that ‘50 per cent of the time he was a nice guy, 50 per cent he was horrible’.
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Hide AdHe said: “They went out on days from 9am to 5pm with no explanation. I tried ringing them; they’d ignore their phones. When they came back they’d say ‘it’s nothing to do with you’."
He added that his parents would leave him in the house with carrots, potatoes, green beans and canned food to eat while they visited KFC and McDonalds.
"They were trying to snide me by going out,” he said.
He claimed that witness accounts of clashes with his parents were exaggerated, and that evidence given by a local barmaid, Tracey Ainsworth – who said Mrs Livesey had told her Tipping had slipped a note under her bedroom door, threatening to kill her – was untrue.
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Hide AdHe said: “They don’t like me… She gives me evils and says nasty comments to me, brushing past me like I was a piece of dirt.”