'Tell the kids I love them, I've just killed Charlene'

A killer has been branded the 'scum of the earth’ after strangling his ex-partner to death.

Charlene Mills was ‘smitten’ with Peter Pitt. It had been turbulent, but a court was told how she was keen to ‘rekindle’ their relationship.

But as they spent a night together Pitt killed her. Manchester Crown Court was told he has schizophrenia and experienced delusions that Charlene, 43, was trying to poison him.

On the morning Charlene was found dead in Pitt’s home in Gorton, he texted his ex-wife to admit that he’d killed her. She went to his home and Pitt, 52, confessed that he’d ‘strangled her with his bare hands’.

Charlene’s devastated family were in court as Pitt appeared in court by video link from a psychiatric hospital.

He pleaded guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility after medical experts agreed that his mental condition gave him the partial defence to murder, which Pitt was originally charged with. Prosecutors said that Pitt’s condition had been exacerbated by his use of illegal drugs.

Charlene’s family claimed that Pitt would use her money to feed his addiction, and that she would even collect drugs from dealers for him. Delphine Mills, Charlene’s mother, in a statement read on her behalf, said that despite his plea the family believed that she was ‘murdered’.

“Peter has taken one of the most precious things away from me,” she said. “Charlene was my first born.

“What that man, if I can even call him a man, has done to me and my family is beyond words. I welcomed him into my house and took him at face value when Charlene first introduced us to him.

“We got on well enough and didn’t argue so I thought I would give him a chance. She was smitten with him and was so happy to be in a relationship