Brian Blackwell

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Brian Blackwell

Brian Blackwell (born 1986) is an Englishman who killed his parents - 72-year-old Sydney and 61-year-old Jacqueline - at their Merseyside home in July 2004. Medical experts have since diagnosed that Blackwell suffers from Narcissistic personality disorder, which is characterised by extreme feelings of self-importance, a high need for admiration, and a lack of empathy.

Blackwell was described as an "exemplary student" at the £7,000 a year Liverpool College. He created a web of lies about his life, including claiming he was a professional tennis player. He funded his fantasies by applying for thirteen credit cards in his father's name. He murdered his parents in July 2004 after they had quizzed him about his increasingly lavish lifestyle. Both had been beaten with a claw hammer and stabbed repeatedly. After the murders he went on holiday to New York with his girlfriend, where he embarked on a £30,000 spending spree, including a three night stay in the Presidential Suite at the Plaza Hotel. A week later he returned to school and found that he had earned As in all of his A-levels, grades which would have gained him a place at the University of Nottingham to study medicine in October. However, the decomposed bodies of his parents were found in September. Police initially thought they had been shot, such was the severity of the attacks.

Blackwell was charged with murder and was due to stand trial; however, that charge was dropped after he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility after experts diagnosed Narcissistic personality disorder. Blackwell was sentenced to life imprisonment on June 29, 2005. This was the first case in an English court where narcissistic personality disorder had been found to be a defence to murder.