MENTAL health patient Nicola Edgington had delusions of being left behind in a nuclear holocaust before she knifed two people in Bexleyheath, a jury heard.

Edgington is accused of stabbing 58-year-old grandmother Sally Hodkin to death and attempting to murder Kerry Clark, 22, in two random Bexleyheath knife attacks on the morning of October 10 2011.

Consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Adrian Cree told the Old Bailey last week [January 28] that the 32-year-old had suffered hallucinations and visions of "grandiose religiosity" in the days leading up to the attack.

He told the court how Edgington, of Ambedkar House, Flavell Mews, Greenwich, claimed she saw people disappearing to the kingdom of God and shop windows looking like they had suffered a nuclear holocaust.

The religious 32-year-old - who had gained beliefs from a non-mainstream church - also claimed there was a 100-eyed monster that guarded the throne of God against his enemies and took the form of the police on earth.

Dr Cree said: "She told me ‘I thought Jesus had come back for the souls and I had been left behind.

"I didn’t understand because I love God.’"

He added: "She had a feeling of being left behind.

"Everyone else who was going to be saved had gone.

"A distinctly unhappy experience."

Edgington - who also told the doctor she had loved Osama Bin Laden and wanted to bear his child - was experiencing increasing paranoia and would not go in the shower for fear of being stabbed like the scene in horror movie Psycho.

Prosecutor Mark Heywood QC told the Old Bailey Edgington had shoplifted in Bexleyheath’s hardware store Wilkinsons in order to be caught by the police and protected shortly before the killings.

Mr Heywood said: "She believed she was in some computer simulation and the only way to be safe was to be with the police.

"She formed the belief that if she shoplifted she would be caught by the police."

Edgington then claims a memory black-out between the shoplifting and being arrested - during which time she bought a knife in Asda and attacked her victims, the court heard.

Unemployed Edgington denies one charge of murder and another of attempted murder.

She admits the stabbings but is pleading diminished responsibility on account of her mental condition.

The trial continues.