After eating cannabis brownies, a man repeatedly attacked, strangled and ran over his girlfriend. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Jake Notman, 27 years old, admitted the murder of Lauren Bloomer (25-year-old university student), after she ate a marijuana brownie at their Tamworth, Staffordshire home.
Stafford Crown Court heard that the student, aged 25,’recorded herself as murder’ following a search on the internet for information about Notman’s ‘bad marijuana trip’.
Miss Bloomer sustained more than 30 stab injuries. He denied killing her but claimed he was not motivated by his mental illness.
After prosecutors dropped the murder allegation, Notman, who worked at Jaguar Land Rover’s car factory, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to the lesser charge for manslaughter.
Jake Notman (pictured), 27, repeatedly stabbed and strangled his girlfriend after he ate a cannabis brownie. He was sentenced to eight years in prison
Lauren Bloomer, a 25-year old university student was stabbed over 30 times following her search for advice online about a bad weed trip.
Mrs Justice May, upon passing sentence, accepted Notman’s involvement in the Tamworth killing. This was in direct response to him taking small amounts of marijuana in a brownie.
Notman had no prior convictions and the judge said that Notman had murdered his spouse ‘in a most surprising and frightening way.
According to the trial, Miss Bloomer had’recorded herself murdering’ using a cell phone. She sought advice online about Notman’s bad weed trip.
Deborah Gould, prosecutor in the case opened the proceedings last week. She said Miss Bloomer had used her cellphone to record the event ‘like something from the movie Scream.
Ms. Gould explained to the court what was visible or heard in the nearly 17-minute audio recording. The recordings began as the couple were sleeping together.
She was trying to take care of him while he was in this condition caused by cannabis.
“At the beginning of the recording, you’ll hear her laughing as the defendant accuses her of laughing at her.”
According to the jury, Notman became aggressive around nine minutes into recording. Miss Bloomer, however, was just a minute away from being heard calling his aunt on another phone and saying “Please help me”
Ms Gould said that Lauren started recording using the mobile phone because there was a certain element of indictment.
At the crime scene, one officer is seen placing an object of interest in an evidence bag
“The audio captured Lauren’s screaming and recorded her requests for assistance.
Before the revving engine could be heard, Notman said “I’m going to make certain”
The victim’s cell phone recorded a thud as Notman’s Ford Kuga drove over her.
He was a Jaguar Land Rover employee in Solihull.
Then he called 999 at 1.32 AM, and informed the operator that he had been told he had killed his girlfriend.
In five interviews with police, Notman did not comment. Instead, he stated that the marijuana brownie – which was the first time he’d ever had – contained something other than cannabis.
After the murder, the victims’ house was searched by the Forensic Teams.
Andrew Fisher, the defence barrister, gave a brief speech to the jury. It stated that Notman had experienced an “extremely florid psychiatric episode during which he completely lost touch with reality. And became totally delusional.”
The Crown did not offer any evidence in the case of murder. Prosecution QC Ben Douglas Jones said that Notman was incapable of forming the necessary intent to support the charge.
Douglas Jones stated to the court, “All three experts agree that, based on all evidence including the recordings, defendant’s mental reaction to marijuana is so deep that he couldn’t discern the difference between what was real or what wasn’t.”
“In particular, he couldn’t discern whether Lauren Bloomer had died or if he was real. Also, he couldn’t tell whether he was alone or with someone else.
“The Crown reviewed all evidence from the CPS at an extremely high level and concluded that the murder case cannot be continued.”