Beheading Trial: Attacker 'Didn't Look Human'

A British couple broke down in tears as they told a court of the moment they saw a man "who did not look human" decapitate a woman in front of them in Tenerife.

Kenneth and Susan Bennison gave evidence in the murder trial of homeless Bulgarian drug addict Deyan Deyanov at the Provincial Court in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Deyanov, 29, denies fatally stabbing Jennifer Mills-Westley in a shop in the popular resort of Los Cristianos on May 13, 2011.

Mr and Mrs Bennison, from Warrington, were both tearful when they described how they witnessed the attack on the 60-year-old from just metres away as they shopped during their holidays.

Speaking via videolink from the UK, Mrs Bennison said she heard a "very strange noise" and looked to her right where she saw a man kneeling on the ground, repeatedly stabbing a woman she had previously passed in the aisle.

She said the man "looked unclean, wild and he did not look human".

Her husband told the jury of nine that the perpetrator looked "quite calm" as he carried out the assault, adding nothing was said between the grandmother-of-five and her attacker.

"We heard her gasp for breath. He withdrew the knife out of her neck and then put it back in again. That's when I got my wife out of the building," Mr Bennison said.

Ms Mills-Westley's daughters, Sarah Mills-Westley, 43, from Norwich, and Samantha Mills-Westley, 39, who lives in the Midi-Pyrenees region of France, were in court for the second day of the trial.

Samantha Mills-Westley wiped away tears as she listened to the evidence.

The jury was told Deyanov hears voices which tell him he is an "angel of Jesus Christ" who will create a new Jerusalem.

He has been diagnosed with acute paranoid schizophrenia and has admitted he was a crack cocaine and LSD user.

Police officers told the court of the chaotic scenes when they arrived at the shop.

One officer said: "My colleagues put him (Deyanov) in the car and took him to the police station.

"Until then I had not seen the head, but people were shouting 'There is a head, there is a head' and on the kerb opposite there was indeed a head covered by a blanket."

The trial continues.