A paranoid schizophrenic whose frenzied knife attack left a man temporarily blinded has been detained indefinitely in a secure hospital.

Liam Rodgers, 33, savagely attacked the young man in the corridors of a halfway house in Harrogate, stabbing him repeatedly in the face, head and neck, York Crown Court heard.

Rodgers, who left the man lying inert and covered in blood, was under investigation at the time for two sexual offences against a woman in Harrogate.

Prosecutor Jessca Heggie said that Rodgers, described as a “Jekyll-and-Hyde character”, was high on drugs in each of the attacks.

The motiveless stabbing of the named man occurred at a homeless hostel in Starbeck on January 29, 2024, where both he and Rodgers were living at the time.

Ms Heggie said the victim was walking along an upstairs hallway to his room when Rodgers suddenly appeared and lunged at him with a kitchen knife.

“He stabbed him several times in the face, neck and head,” she said.

“(Rodgers) held him in a bear hug and continued to stab him in the head and neck.”

Couldn’t open eyes for five days

The victim finally managed to push Rodgers away but collapsed on the floor with blood pouring from his wounds.

Ms Heggie said that Rodgers had been “entirely silent” during the attack and there had been “no previous issues between the men”.

She said the placid victim was “particularly vulnerable” and “the least likely of any of the residents to fight back”.

When an ambulance crew arrived at the hostel, which supports people with drink-and-drug issues, they found the victim “bleeding profusely and shaking”.

He was taken to Harrogate District Hospital where he was treated for injuries including deep cuts to the back of his head and behind his ear, and cuts next to his eye and between his nose and lip. There was swelling to his head and severe bruising to his face.

Medical staff glued his head wounds but he couldn’t open his eyes for up to five days, during which he “couldn’t see”.

He was now too afraid to go out on his own, found it hard to sleep and suffered nightmares.

He had been left with scarring to his face, head and neck from the “brutal”, drug-fuelled attack. 

Sexual assault

Ms Heggie said that Rodgers, who suffered from paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations, later told an accommodation officer that he had heard “people talking in his room and moving things” before attacking the victim in the corridor.

Rodgers, of no fixed abode, was arrested and initially charged with attempted murder, but the prosecution later accepted his guilty plea to wounding with intent and ultimately dropped the former charge.

At the time of the incident, he was under police investigation after a woman alleged he had sexually assaulted her in Harrogate.

Those offences occurred in 2023 when Rodgers, high on amphetamine, forced the victim to perform a lewd act on him and sexually assaulted her.

The victim recalled his “crazy eyes” and that he was “smirking in an evil way”.

Rodgers was charged with sexual assault and causing the woman to engage in sexual activity without consent but denied the offences right up to the doors of the court, only pleading guilty after the victim had been cross-examined by his legal representative before a scheduled trial.

Judges can order pre-recorded cross-examination of vulnerable victims pending trials, particularly in cases involving sexual offences. 

Paranoid schizophrenia

Rodgers appeared for sentence via video link today (March 3) after being remanded in custody. He had initially been remanded in prison but was later transferred to secure accommodation where he was receiving ongoing psychiatric treatment.

Flanked by a mental health nurse in the video booth, Rodgers, now being medicated, appeared detached, almost oblivious, to the court proceedings.

Ms Heggie said the sexual offences against the woman and the horrific knife attack on the male victim had been fuelled by alcohol and drugs.

The female victim had been subjected to “degradation” during the sexual offences.

The prosecutor outlined Rodgers’ criminal record which included burglary, battery and damaging property. He had also received police cautions for shoplifting and public disorder.

Reports from consultant psychiatrists concluded that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia evidenced by “delusional beliefs and auditory hallucinations”.

His solicitor advocate Peter Minnikin said that Rodgers had been “very unwell for a considerable period of time”.

He said that despite intense medical intervention while in secure accommodation awaiting sentence, Rodgers’ schizophrenic and paranoiac symptoms were “continuing at pace”.

Hospital order

He said that Rodgers had endured a traumatic childhood and had never received the mental health treatment he needed.

“He knows that until he gets better, he will remain in a custodial setting, under care and treatment, and (that) may well be for the rest of his life,” added Mr Minnikin.

Judge Simon Hickey said that Rodgers had “degraded” and terrified the female victim of the sexual offences and had left the male stabbing victim with “severe” injuries after “lurking in a corridor”.

However, he said that he agreed with the doctors’ reports that Rodgers was suffering from a severe mental health illness and that “the most appropriate” sentence for the protection of the public was a hospital order under which Rodgers would be detained in secure accommodation indefinitely to get the treatment he needed.

The order includes an addendum under Section 41 of the Mental Health Act, otherwise known as a “special-restriction order”, which means that if Rodgers were ever to be released from hospital, he could be recalled in the event of a “relapse”.

Such orders are imposed by courts to protect the public from serious harm and significantly limits a patient’s discharge, leave and transfer rights.

The judge made the hospital order as an alternative to a prison sentence.

He said that if Rodgers had received a jail sentence, it would have been a prison term of about 16 years.

Rodgers was ordered to sign on the sex-offenders’ register for life.