Jailed for life: Deranged hostel resident who murdered Harlesden care worker with a fire extinguisher

A deranged rock fan who was released back into the community to kill a care worker from Harlesden has been jailed for life with a minimum of 24 years.

Michael Meanza, 47, battered Jenny Foote to death with a fire extinguisher in her office at the mental health charity-run Collette House in Acton, on July 27 last year.

The Old Bailey heard he had been in an out of mental hospitals since 1990 and was allowed out despite making threats to kill in 2013.

Meanza had been a resident at the hostel for three months when Ms Foote knocked on his door after a neighbour complained about the noise as he watched a rock DVD.

Three hours later, Meanza repeatedly hitting her about the head with the heavy fire extinguisher.

He fled the scene and later told police ‘I know I’m guilty’, then laughed as he confessed to killing, telling a doctor: “She told me to turn the TV down.”

Meanza admitted killing Ms Foote, but his barrister Bernie Richmond claimed he was only guilty of manslaughter because he was suffering from ‘severe anger pathology.’

However today he was found guilty of her murder.

Sentencing him Judge John Bevan QC said: “Jenny Foote was killed for doing no more than her job, working to assist and be of general help to those in your position, released from mental hospitals.”

Meanza’s first psychiatric admission was in 1990 and he was made the subject of two hospital orders that decade.

He was released into the community in 2001, but briefly recalled to hospital in 2009 and again in December 2013 after threatening to kill his psychiatrist and a psychiatric nurse.

Mrs Foote’s family said her life could have been saved if Meanza been properly diagnosed and kept in hospital.