THE killer of seven-year-old Emily Jones “started laughing hysterically” when she saw a girl who looked like her victim on TV, a court heard.

At Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester, Dr Saifullah Syed Afghan, a consultant forensic psychiatrist from Rampton Hospital, where Eltiona Skana, 30, is currently being treated, described to the jury a number of violent incidents that had occurred concerning Skana while she was in his care.

On one such occasion on August 5 this year, Skana was watching a children’s television show in the evening while in a ward at Rampton Hospital when she saw a child who looked like Emily.

Dr Afghan said: “She had started laughing hysterically when looking at a child who looked similar to her alleged victim.”

On other occasions she became aggressive towards staff and stared into one member of staff’s face saying: “Your body has gone to the soul.”

Giving evidence, Dr Afghan described how Skana would enter “fight mode rather than flight mode” when she perceived she was being threatened.

She would talk about her skin burning and receiving interference from “electrical energy” and how her “thoughts were being shaped and controlled by an external force”.

The jury also heard how Skana’s paranoia revolved around the belief injections she had been given had “made her into a psychopath” and that she had been well before coming to the UK in 2014.

Dr Afghan said: “She said that she had been completely well and doing okay up until this country and these persecutory beliefs were more to do with the Home Office.”

Skana was also described as drinking seven cups of coffee a day with each cup containing three tea spoons of coffee.

Despite her behaviour, Dr Afghan said he had originally disagreed with the initial diagnosis that Skana was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

He said he wanted to treat her as “a clean slate” and begun a process of “weaning” her off anti-psychotic medication.

However, following a number of incidents throughout the summer, the decision was made to restore her medication in October and he changed his mind about her diagnosis.

When asked by Michael Brady, prosecuting, if Skana should be eligible for the defence of diminished responsibility, Dr Afghan replied he did not feel he had enough information about her mental state at the time she killed Emily in Bolton’s Queens Park in March this year, to make that conclusion.

Skana, of Ernest Street, Bolton, has admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but denies murder.

The trial continues.