Murderer Jordan Davidson will be sentenced this afternoon.

The Wrexham man who called himself the Devil murdered a retired restaurateur and described it as the greatest day of his life.

Davidson, who had earlier posed for a mobile phone picture with the murder weapon, a machete which he called “his new toy”, will receive life imprisonment at Mold Crown Court.

Mr Justice Clive Lewis will have to rule on the minimum period he will have to serve before he can apply for parole.

He will then only be released if the authorities are satisfied he is no longer dangerous.

Davidson, 26, went on a crime spree of robbery and burglary – and did not stop after he had murdered 67-year-old Nicholas Churton at his flat in Crescent Close in Wrexham.

He went on to rob and seriously injure a man in Chester, attacked a detective who was interviewing him and then while on remand at Altcourse Prison in Liverpool slashed a prison officer with a make-shift weapon in revenge for reporting him for drugs years earlier.

The defendant today appeared via a live television link from Strangeways Prison in Manchester after he was transferred from Ashworth Hospital where he had previously been held.

This morning, Christopher Tehrani QC, defending, said his client clearly suffered from a mental disorder although it was not clear cut precisely what it was.

“We submit that when deciding what the correct starting point is we ask you to bear in mind this major, major psychiatric disorder this young man has been suffering with from a young age,” he said.

It was unlikely Davidson would have behaved as he did without an “underlying” mental health problem.

He certainly had a personality disorder and while it was suggested that it may have been drug or alcohol induced, Mr Tehrani said it was clear it had been first detected when he was aged about seven or eight.

Davidson suffered from a major psychiatric disorder from a very young age and he also had a very disturbed childhood, separated from his parents at a young age, and he ran away from various carers.

A neuro developmental psychiatric disorder, which became evident in childhood and had continued in various degrees into adult life.

It manifested itself as a child in his behaviour – fighting, bullying, wild behaviour, cruelty to close relatives and to animals, expulsion from school, drug misuse, alcohol misuse and a fascination with fire.

His condition and his disturbed childhood meant that he was in fact a vulnerable person, cloaked by a facade of violence which he had adopted from a relatively young age.

The court heard that three psychiatrists had been commissioned to prepare reports on the defendant and they did not agree on a diagnosis.

As far as the murder was concerned there was premeditation to a degree, but not to a significant degree.

He did not go there with a premeditation to kill, Mr Tehrani said.

The later attacks on the interviewing police officer and the prison officer were “unplanned” and “spontaneous” reaction to events, said Mr Tehrani.

This young man can be treated with “time and effort,” he said.

Davidson was no longer at Ashworth Hospital where he had been held but since his guilty pleas had been transferred to Manchester Prison.

The judge said that no treatment programme was planned and the psychiatrists did not agree what he actually suffered from.

There was no treatment that he could be offered.

The judge said that psychiatric reports showed that they could not be sure Davidson was in fact under the influence of mental illness.

Davidson admitted a murder charge and had not advanced diminished responsibility.

Mr Tehrani said that while there was a suggestion in the psychiatric assessments that the defendant had “read up on such matters”, the only way of coming to a proper consideration about his condition was with time and effort, observation over an extended period of time, measured in years.

It was puzzling that Ashworth had recommended that he be transferred back to prison after last week’s appearance, he said.