Jennifer Mills-Westley was killed while in Tenerife
Jennifer Mills-Westley was killed while in Tenerife

A Bulgarian who was found guilty of beheading an expatriate British grandmother in Tenerife has been sentenced to 20 years in a secure unit.

Deyan Deyanov, 29, a homeless drug addict who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, was found guilty of killing 60-year-old Jennifer Mills-Westley at the popular holiday resort of Los Cristianos in May 2011.

He was given the maximum sentence possible and told to pay €100,000 (£113,000) in compensation to the two daughters of the 60-year-old victim.

The court heard how Deyanov had previously been detained in psychiatric hospitals in north Wales and Tenerfie.

Spanish law dictates a person can still be found guilty of murder despite diminished responsibility on the grounds of mental illness.

Deyanov previously told the court how he heard voices that told him he was an "angel of Jesus Christ who is going to create a new Jerusalem". These voices, he said, "direct how I act. Sometimes they say kill, fight, hit, pray."

The court heard how the 29-year-old had purchased a knife on the morning of the attack because he wanted to kill somebody. He approached the victim and repeatedly stabbed the grandmother-of-five in the neck.

He carried her severed head through the street, shouting wildly, before being wrestled to the ground by security guards.

On his arrest, he admitted he had taken crack cocaine and LSD prior to the attack.

There was a warrant out for Deyanov's arrest, in the days prior to the killing, but police were unable to find him.

Following the conviction, Mills-Westley's daughters Sam and Sarah said mistakes needed to be learnt from the case.

They said: "It is clear to us that there has been a catalogue of failings; unfortunately it is now left to us to piece these together as we still have so many unanswered questions.

"We would like to make a plea that the care of people like Deyan Valentinov Deyanov is taken more seriously. He is a young man who has clearly been failed by a number of authorities, in the UK, Spain, and most likely others.

"Words alone cannot express our thanks to the support provided by Victim Support and the Lucie Blackman Trust - Missing Abroad. However, despite our expectations, we have been disappointed by the lack of any other support; notably the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and our mum's MP in her hometown of Norfolk."