Sir Richard Sutton murder trial: Partner Anne Schreiber ‘left paralysed after son’s knife attack’

A jobless painter accused of murdering hotelier Sir Richard Sutton and paralysing his own mother in a frenzied knife attack became incensed and fixated after the multimillionaire failed to apologise for caning him with a walking stick, a trial today heard.

Jury members were told of claims that the prominent businessman had struck murder accused Thomas Schreiber with the walking stick during a family argument in November 2020.

Family members told the jury how the alleged bust-up took place six months before Schreiber, 35, stabbed the 83-year-old baronet to death in a ‘vicious’ knife attack at his £2million country estate Moorhill, in Dorset.

Schreiber is accused of murdering the businessman and attempting to murder his 66-year-old mother Anne, the partner of Sir Richard, during the ‘vicious’ stabbing in April.

Schreiber, an aspiring painter who was living in the mansion with what jury members were today told was a £1,000-a-month allowance from Sir Richard, has previously admitted manslaughter in relation to Sir Richard’s death.

He denies murder and also denies an allegation of attempted murder in relation to the attack on his mother. 

Today, in his trial at Winchester Crown Court, the jury were told how Sir Richard was paying jobless Schreiber a £1,000 allowance while he stayed in his Dorset mansion.

But Caroline Sutton, Sir Richard’s daughter who lived just a mile from Moorhill, told the court that tensions were high between her father and Schreiber. 

The court previously heard Schreiber held resentment at how his mother Anne and Sir Richard had treated his late father David following their divorce.

Ms Sutton broke down in tears in court as she revealed her father wanted Schreiber to leave his house so badly he offered to give him £100,000 for a house deposit. 

‘My father was constantly thinking about Tom and how he wanted him out of the house and he wouldn’t go,’ she told the court.

‘Tom was rude and disrespectful and would never help him and I suggested he got him somewhere to live and he just said ‘Tom wouldn’t go’.’

Ms Sutton’s partner, Steven Woodward, added: ‘It was awful. [Sir Richard] became a prisoner in his own home.

‘There was a lack of respect, just a total lack of any respect for Richard and his position.

‘[Sir Richard thought] Tom was a person who thought the world owed him a living, he’s sarcastic, he thinks he’s above everybody else.’

The court heard tensions boiled when Sir Richard hit the defendant with his walking stick, causing it to shatter, during a family argument in November 2020.

Rose McCarthy, sister of the Schreiber said the atmosphere at Moorhill had become a ‘vicious triangle’.

She said: ‘He (Tom) said he wanted an apology. He became quite fixated on getting an apology from Sir Richard, then in the following weeks it hadn’t materialised, he was incensed by it, it consumed him.’

She also described how her brother had attacked her after she had sworn at him following an argument over who should drive home from the races at Wincanton a few years earlier.

She said: ‘Tom jumped on me from behind, punched, had his hands round my neck, then in seconds my sister had taken him off me.’

Ms McCarthy said Sir Richard then took a swing at Schreiber but missed to which the defendant punched him, knocking him to the ground.

The court heard earlier today how Schreiber’s mother, Anne, 66, was left paralysed from the attack in April.

Jury members heard that Mrs Schreiber was stabbed so many times during the ‘vicious assault’ at Sir Richard’s mansion that doctors used 27 litres of blood to save her life. 

The average human has around five litres of blood in the body at anyone time. 

Schreiber wept in the dock as an emotional phone call between him and his sister after the killing was played in court.

In it Schreiber broke down and apologised, blaming a ‘demon’ as Louisa Schreiber, 40, said their mother was paralysed from the neck down, on a ventilator and added: ‘I don’t even think she will make it.’

The 35 year old called his older sister Louisa Schreiber, 40, from prison on April 27, almost three weeks after he attacked his mother and her partner.

He said: ‘Louisa, it’s Tom. Please… please don’t hang up… I’m sorry to bother you… I just wanted to hear your voice and see if mum’s… see how mum’s doing and things.’

His sister replied: ‘I don’t know what to say,’ before Schreiber expressed his regret.

He said: ‘I’m so sorry, it’s completely f***ing madness, it’s a complete nightmare I have.

‘I’m waking up every day hoping to wake up from this nightmare… I don’t know what happened I completely lost control it’s just complete madness and doesn’t make any sense and I’m so sorry.

‘I didn’t didn’t mean for any of this this to happen you have to believe me on that I didn’t want to hurt anyone…’

Louisa replied: ‘She’s paralysed Tom… from the neck down… she’s on a ventilator… she can open her eyes though and she can smile… she seems to have her brain functioning but I don’t know what the future holds for her.

‘She’s got a spinal cord injury in her neck… She’s survived, against all the odds, but it’s [now] whether she will ever move.’

In the call from Winchester prison, Hants, Schreiber repeatedly shouted ‘No’ as his sister described their mother’s injuries and asked ‘can she move?’ and ‘will she improve?’.

When he said he didn’t understand why his mother couldn’t move her legs, Louisa replied: ‘Because she’s had a knife go into her neck.’

She added there was a ‘possibility’ that Mrs Schreiber will not be able to breathe without a ventilator for the rest of her life and added: ‘I don’t even think she will make it.’

Schreiber said: ‘I’m sorry I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I just completely lost it. 

‘That wasn’t me there that day. It wasn’t Thomas Schreiber. It was someone else, it was like a demon.’

He said: ‘I just wanted to give mum a hug’ then trailed off before saying ‘I just flipped’.

By the time the 12 minute long recording of the call ended with Schreiber saying ‘I wish you a good evening’, both he and his sister were sat in tears at Winchester Crown Court.

Sir Richard, who last year was listed at number 435 in the Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated family fortune of £301million, was killed following rows with Schreiber about the inheritance of a family chandelier and a day at the races, the court previously heard.

He owned a sprawling property empire and more than 7,000 acres of land, including the five-star Sheraton Grand on London’s Park Lane and the Athenaeum hotel in Mayfair.

Schreiber has admitted manslaughter over the hotelier’s death but denies murdering him. He pleads not guilty to the attempted murder of his mother.

He has also pleaded guilty to dangerous driving on the night of the killing, after he fled in a Range Rover and was captured by police after a high speed chase and a ‘hard stop’ in London.

Sir Richard’s body was found on the landing, after he was initially attacked downstairs and limped upstairs where Schreiber is said to have stabbed him a further five times in the chest with a kitchen knife.

The prosecution say Schreiber repeatedly knifed his ‘toxic and gold digging’ mother and Sir Richard after fantasising for months about their murders.

In a chilling text about a month before the killings, the 35 year old told a friend ‘I contemplate murdering them all morning day and night’.

Sir Richard had two children by his first wife Fiamma, and five grandchildren.

Mrs Schreiber, a Danish-born physiotherapist who has a practice in Milborne Port, Dorset, has three grown-up children including son Thomas.

The trial continues.