The son of a wealthy art collector who described himself to 999 as a “nice boy from Chelsea” after stabbing and strangling a live-in housekeeper has been sentenced to an indefinite hospital order with restrictions.
Maximillian Bourne, 26, attacked Joselia Pereira Do Nascimento at his family’s multimillion-pound property in the west London area of Chelsea on 25 February last year.
He then called 999 and told the operator he had stabbed a “demon woman” and was a “nice boy from Chelsea”, Southwark Crown Court heard at a sentencing hearing on Tuesday.
Ms Nascimento was left permanently scarred and received no help or support from the “extremely wealthy family” following the incident.
Bourne was charged with attempted murder but was deemed unfit to stand trial because of his mental health, and a jury decided that he committed the act charged against him after minutes of deliberation following a one-day trial.
Judge Gregory Perrins said it was “only through sheer good fortune” that Ms Nascimento survived the attack.
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The judge described how Ms Nascimento was watching TV in her room on the evening of the attack when Bourne knocked on her door and asked her to step out.
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“He then viciously and brutally attacked her, stabbing her repeatedly with a kitchen knife to her head and her body,” the judge said.
“This was without question an utterly terrifying incident for Ms Nascimento.
“She was attacked without warning and without provocation in the home in which she lived and worked. It is only through sheer good fortune that she survived the attack.”
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The judge imposed a hospital order with restrictions, explaining Bourne will remain in a secure hospital “indefinitely”.
“He will not be released unless a specialist tribunal considers it appropriate,” the judge said.
“Were he ever to be released it would be under strict conditions and a high degree of oversight.”
Ms Nascimento left her place of work, which was also where she resided, after the attack, the court heard.
She has had to rely on charity and other people’s support to get by, the judge said, as the family of the attacker offered no help despite being “extremely wealthy”.
The judge turned to Ms Nascimento, who was in court for the proceedings, and said: “I sincerely hope that your physical and mental scars heal and with time you’ll be able to move on from this truly awful incident.”
In a statement read out by the prosecutor, Ms Nascimento described how after being stabbed and strangled by Bourne, she managed to get free and lock herself in a bathroom before retrieving her phone to call for help, telling one of her friends that she was dying.
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The court heard she tried to breathe quietly in the hope that Bourne would think she was dead.
“He then said: ‘Open the door’, which he repeated and was knocking,” Ms Nascimento continued.
“I could feel my blood going down my body. I was losing blood.”
Describing the attack, she said: “I told him I have a daughter and I pleaded with him to stop.
“He told me that it was because I was evil, but we had never had an argument or a disagreement.”
She said Bourne had not been behaving normally in the lead-up to the incident, recounting how he had been sleeping on the bathroom floor and talking to himself, the court heard.
Police body-worn camera footage recorded him apologising repeatedly after his arrest and telling officers: “It was the devil.”
