Nicholas Salvador trial: Court hears how cage fighting hopeful beheaded 82-year-old Palmira Silva with machete during 45 minute rampage

First day of murder trial hears how the paranoid schizophrenic also beheaded two cats and smashed his way through garden fences

Palmira Silva who was killed last year (Metropolitan Police )

An elderly woman was beheaded by a paranoid schizophrenic armed with a machete and a wooden pole who went on a 45-minute rampage through a residential area, a court has heard.

Palmira Silva, 82, was in her back garden when she was killed by Nicholas Salvador, 25, in North London last year, the Old Bailey was told.

Heavily-built Salvador beheaded two cats before smashing his way through garden fences and breaking into a neighbour's house. He was eventually arrested after a violent struggle with police during which he was tasered six times.

Opening his murder trial, prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC told the jury there was no dispute that he killed Mrs Silva at her home on 4 September 2014.

At the time of the killing, Mr Salvador, an aspiring cage fighter, was living three doors away from Mrs Silva in Nightingale Road, Edmonton.

At 1pm, he armed himself from the house he was staying in and killed two of his hosts' cats, because he thought they were "demons", the court heard.

He made his way through a few back gardens then smashed his way into another house and attacked a car containing two members of the family which he was living with.

Next, he went back through the house and into an alleyway that ran alongside Mrs Silva's home, jurors were told.

The victim, owned a café in Edmonton Green, had wandered into her back garden and approached Salvador who leapt over a wall into her garden and attacked her, hacking the grandmother of six to death and cutting off her head.

Afterwards, the defendant ran through a series of gardens at the back of the terraced houses, tearing down fences as he went while police tried to evacuate homes to keep residents safe.

He was finally arrested by armed officers in the front room of another house in Nightingale Road "after a violent and chaotic struggle", Mr Rees said.

Mr Salvador had been showing signs of mental illness, repeating phrases such as "red is the colour" and "I am the king".

In the weeks before, he had shown signs of "odd behaviour" and had developed an interest in "shapeshifters" - supernatural entities that can physically transform into another being or form.

Mr Rees said that psychiatrists would give evidence that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

Salvador, of Gilda Avenue, Ponders End, Enfield, north London, denies murder on grounds of insanity.

The trial continues.

Additional reporting by Press Association