Former student admits stabbing lecturer nearly four years later

DEFENDANT SUFFERS FROM 'A DELUSIONAL DISORDER'

- By MARTIN NAYLOR [e-mail]

ALMOST four years after a Nottingham Trent University lecturer was subjected to a vicious knife attack by one of his former students, the culprit has admitted his guilt.

Ryan Usher pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Dr Neil Turnbull when he appeared over a link at Nottingham Crown Court yesterday.

The 52-year-old charged at the victim at the Clifton Campus before repeatedly stabbing him to the left side of his body.

The hearing was told how the defendant suffers from “a delusional disorder” and told police he was trying to carry out “a political assassination” and that the university had “established a rape network”.

In 2023, a hospital order was imposed on Usher, formerly of Waldeck Road, Carrington, after a jury at a “finding of fact” hearing concluded that he had carried out the attack and other offences.

Now, years later, psychiatrists who have been treating him have ruled that he is now fit to plead.