HE WAS the prime suspect who allegedly confessed to murdering a North Yorkshire man, then walked free from court over a technicality.

Today James William Payling, just 22, is finally off the streets and facing life in Rampton - the secure hospital for Britain's most dangerously insane - after a court case in York.

It was in January 2002, that Payling allegedly confessed to the murder of David Williamson, 58, who had been found unconscious in a lay-by near his home in Sutton-on-the-Forest the previous year. He had been struck from behind and later died of his injuries.

But after walking free after a court hitch, Payling was back in trouble only two years later after threatening to kill a garage attendant - saying voices in his head had told him to do it.

Now he will only leave the special psychiatric unit if the Home Secretary and doctors agree he is safe enough to be released.

David Brooke, prosecuting, told York Crown Court that Payling was being supervised by a community psychiatric team and getting twice-weekly home visits from a specialist nurse when he committed his latest crime in May 2004.

The former York man with a history of violence told psychiatric nurse Graham Sullivan that he had a knife and that voices in his head were urging him to kill a man at a garage near his new home in Knaresborough. The health professional contacted police.

After months at Rampton Hospital - which houses patients such as Angel of Death nurse Beverley Allitt - he appeared in court where his barrister Simon Kealey said he wanted to return to prison.

The Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman, formally confined Payling to the hospital as the doctors wanted. Payling, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to making a threat to kill.

In January 2002, he allegedly confessed to the murder of David Williamson, 58, but before Payling could stand trial, a judge at Leeds Crown Court ruled that his "confession" in a police cell was inadmissible in court and the case against him collapsed.

When Payling was 17, he was given a ten-month detention and training order for stabbing his girlfriend and he has committed other violent offences. In April 2002, he was jailed for six weeks for contempt of court for spitting at a police liaison officer in court. Minutes earlier, he had been given a two-year sentence for dangerous driving in a half-hour high speed police chase and related offences. York Crown Court heard then that he had driven at 113mph southwards down the northbound carriageway of the dual carriageway A19 near Dishforth after driving at up to 95mph northbound up the southbound carriageway.

Payling has formerly lived in Bootham, York, as well as Ripon.

Updated: 08:28 Wednesday, October 05, 2005