A MAN has pleaded guilty to killing his mother in their family home almost two years ago.
Alun Kinney Evans (34) had previously denied murdering Margaret Evans in Portstewart on June 4, 2014.
At Antrim Crown Court sitting in Belfast on Tuesday, Evans pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his mother on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
The murder trial had been due to begin on June 20 and last for two weeks.
Ms Evans, a 69-year-old hairdresser who was known as locally as Margo, was found dead in the Knockancor Drive home she shared with her son, a DJ and music producer.
Her husband found Mrs Evans body in the back garden of their home.
She was attacked and beaten and suffered fatal head injuries.
The couple only returned from a trip to visit their daughter in Nottingham a week earlier.
Mrs Evans, a well-known retired business woman, had owned the Madame Margo hairdressing salon near Portstewart promenade.
Within hours of her murder, her son Alun was arrested and detained under the Mental Health Act, transferred first to Holywell Hospital and then to the secure Shannon Clinic at Knockbracken Hospital on the outskirts of south Belfast where he spent eight weeks.
However, the order was not renewed and Evans was remanded in custody in Maghaberry Prison, where he continued to receive therapeutic treatment visits from the Knockbracken mental health care team in the prison's hospital wing.
Mr Justice Seamus Treacy remanded Evans back into custody and he will be sentenced on June 9.
