During the trial, the accused admitted to having a violent row with Mr Fuller after both had been drinking heavily. He said had no recollection of stabbing him but added: “If the evidence points in that direction, it must have happened like that. I was drunk. I lost control.”
He told the court he had “seen red” after Mr Fuller had told him he wanted to sleep with his mother.
“Neil has a very strong emotional relationship with his mother. As he was drunk, Mr Fuller’s remark about (her) touched him. He was then seized not by anger but rage,” said his lawyer, Philippe De Caunes. He had urged the jury to find him guilty of the lesser charge of “manslaughter aggravated by the use of a weapon”.
“However violent the blows struck, he never meant to kill him,” he said.
But the prosecuting judge said: “There never was a fight that night. The victim was lynched.”
“How can you expect a fight between a 67-year-old diabetic, overweight, asthmatic man and an athletic, healthy 30-year-old? It’s as improbable as a fight between a boxer and a six-year old boy,” said Charles Charollois.
“He killed for nothing, for a word, for a phrase. Perhaps that saucy remark about his mother, but what is certain is that Ludlam struck the first blow.”
While Mr Fuller’s blood was found splashed over the walls and floor of the house, “not a drop” of Mr Ludlam’s was found, he said.
Murder was intentional, he added, as he “didn’t lift a finger” to seek help from neighbours afterwards, instead fleeing the country for Britain.
When asked for an explanation, Mr Ludlam said: “I knew he was really hurt, but I thought it would all be OK the next day, that Fuller would regain consciousness”.
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