Overview
- Stewart Michael Diamond, 47, has been given a conditional discharge by a mental health tribunal, making him eligible for release.
- Diamond strangled and dismembered 17-year-old Christopher Hartley in Blackpool in 1997, and the victim’s head has never been found.
- He was convicted of murder at Preston Crown Court in January 1999 and received a life sentence with a minimum term of 17 years.
- He has spent almost his entire sentence in a secure hospital as an ‘extremely dangerous’ paranoid schizophrenic rather than in a conventional prison.
- Parole Board papers released after a public hearing was refused describe his progression through secure to low-secure settings and note the case hinged on a single bloody fingerprint, with no motive or disclosure of missing remains.