A SCHIZOPHRENIC university graduate who stabbed a police officer in the face and chest outside his Quedgeley home has been found guilty of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent.

A jury of eight men and four women took just under five hours to reach a majority 10-2 verdict against him at Gloucester Crown Court on Friday.

The 29-year-old Cambridge University computer design graduate lived who lived with his mother and brother at Field Court Gardens, remained impassive as the foreman of the jury announced the verdict.

The judge, Mr Justice Teare, said Leyshon will remain in Fromeside secure mental hospital, where he has been for nine months, until he is sentenced at Bristol Crown Court today, Wednesday.

The incident happened just after 7am on September 10, last year, after Leyshon’s mother Elaine Morgan called the police because her son’s condition had deteriorated and he had threatened to stab the family pet cat with a pair of scissors.

“When the officers arrived the mother was outside the house and she told them that her son suffered from mental health and needed help. She wanted him sectioned,” said prosecuting barrister Kannan Siwa.

PC Edward Dawkins told the court during the week-long trial “When we arrived at the address I approached the front door and the defendant was standing there and he asked his mother what was going on.

“He said ‘everything is fine, I don’t need to speak to you’ and then he went back inside the house.

“I went towards the door, which he shut and locked but I said again that he should come outside so that we could speak.

“He told me that it was all over and he did not want to speak to me but I told him that unless he opened the door we would have to force entry.

“He said ‘you’re going to smash the door down, aren’t you’ and then I saw him go down the hallway and I knew he was not happy and I believed he went to get a knife.

Then he came out holding a large kitchen knife above his head with both hands and tried to stab me.

“I fell over backwards and the knife caught me on the side of the nose and my chin and tore my body armour in the chest area.”

“Fortunately the injuries were minor as the body armour saved the officer from potentially fatal injury and items such as pens in the officer’s pocket also deflected the knife,” said Mr Siwa.

In evidence 29-year-old Leyshon said that he only meant to frighten the officers and did not intend to harm them.

In the weeks leading up to the incident, Leyshon said, he had become very delusional and had lost touch with reality.

He believed that aliens were in control and the whole world was a computer simulation, he said.

He told the court: “I opened the door and raised the knife above my head but when I moved forward I placed the knife gently against the officer, not hard and not with any force.”