A 20-year-old British man who collected "Chucky" dolls has been ordered to remain in a secure hospital after admitting he beat his father to death with a hammer during a row about baggage allowance for a family trip.
Fabio Botros, from Brighton, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and to causing grievous bodily harm to his mother and younger brother over the April 2025 attack, a court heard this week.
He was 19 at the time of the killing of his father, 52-year-old chef Emad Samir Botros, inside the family's home. A judge imposed an indefinite hospital order, meaning Botros will be treated in a secure psychiatric unit for as long as doctors and the court consider necessary, according to People.
Prosecutors said the violence started after an argument about how much luggage the family could take on a planned flight to Egypt.
During the row in the kitchen, neighbors reported hearing screams, and emergency services later found Emad with severe head injuries, while Botros was holding his father by the neck and a bloodstained hammer. He had also attacked his mother and brother, who both survived but were seriously injured.
The court was told that Botros was "obsessed" with horror films and kept a collection of dolls based on Chucky, the killer toy from the Child's Play franchise, Yahoo News reported.
However, prosecutors and medical experts focused instead on his mental health, explaining that his condition had worsened in the months before the killing and that he had previously been misdiagnosed with autism and depression. Doctors said his mental state had "deteriorated to the worst they had ever known" before the attack.
Police recovered two knives and a hammer at the scene, and described it as a "brutal and sustained" assault on multiple members of the same family. In court, Botros accepted responsibility for killing his father but was not convicted of murder after the court accepted medical evidence about his mental disorder.
The judge said public safety required that he remain in hospital without a fixed release date and that any future discharge would depend on specialist assessments and a further court decision, as per the BBC.
