Japanese Girl Poisoner Inspired By Uk Serial Killer

A Japanese teenage girl who was inspired by a notorious British serial killer to attempt to kill her mother with poison was yesterday sent to a juvenile correctional facility for treatment.

The 17-year-old, who cannot be named because she is a minor, has admitted poisoning her mother last year with thallium, an ingredient of rat poison, according to the Shizuoka family court in central Japan.

The girl, a promising chemistry student, recorded her mother's deterioration in posts to her weblog and took photographs as she lay in a coma. She had been inspired by Graham Young, who was convicted of killing three people and poisoning dozens in the 1960s and 1970s.

During a search of the girl's bedroom last year police found animal parts and a copy of Anthony Holden's book, The St Albans Poisoner: The Life and Times of Graham Young. The girl's mother began to feel ill in July last year and was rushed to hospital in October. There, her daughter is said to have tried to poison her again by slipping thallium into her tea. The mother has not regained consciousness.

The teenager was reported to have obtained the drug in a local chemist despite being under 18, claiming it was for a school chemistry experiment.

Handing down the decision, presiding judge Hiroyuki Anegawa said: "The girl had early developmental problems and we have found she has a distorted personality. Her abilities to distinguish right from wrong and to control her actions have been inhibited to a certain extent."

Police were alerted by her brother, who said he had been "horrified" by his sister's "penetrating stare" as their mother lay ill. The girl initially denied the allegations but later admitted poisoning her mother, the court said yesterday.

"My mother has been complaining her legs are no good for two or three days," she wrote on her weblog. "It is almost impossible for her to move."