A CONVICTED killer blamed his actions on the computer game Grand Theft Auto as he tried to kill a second victim.

Keith Williams was playing the computer game with his neighbour when he tried to kill her in a savage knife attack.

The 48-year-old’s victim Amaris Hatton spoke about the attack for the first time yesterday, recalling how he repeatedly stabbed her.

The 35-year-old exclusively told The Argus: “He said he was having a reaction because we were playing a computer game.

“He blamed his violent reaction on the computer game. It was Grand Theft Auto. “At the time we were doing the graffiti mission. He did not attack me with a spray can; he attacked me with a knife that he had brought through from his flat.”

Yesterday Williams pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was given a second life term with a minimum of 16 years.

The court heard how he was already on parole for killing a teenager in 1986 when he attacked Miss Hatton in Sackville Road, Hove, last September.

He was released less than one year earlier, in October 2013, after serving nearly 30 years for killing 17-year-old Melinda Croft in Hastings in 1986.

Miss Hatton required 147 stitches after the attack in her flat and had to have an operation to have the tip of the knife used in the attack removed from her skull.

The court heard how she had invited Williams round and they had played computer games before he had gone upstairs and got a knife.

Prosecuting, Philip Bennetts told the court: “She described it as it was really strong, I fell forward... I could not make sense of it. I put my arm up to my head then felt another knock. I realised that it was not a hard object it was sharp.”

Miss Hatton has since moved to another part of Brighton but struggles with ongoing psychological trauma and has nerve damage to her hand.

She said she knew something of Williams’ past because he had told her he had been in prison, but she did not know the full extent of why.

The pair got to know each other in the months before the attack as they lived next door to each other.

Both Miss Hatton and her sister, Sophea Lerner, said she had not been able to access adequate counselling and practical support since the incident.

Miss Hatton said: “If I could ask for anything it is that the first person whose job it is to find out what is going on here should be able to activate other things, put the white flag up.

“I am not asking for masses of anything, but for the state I was in to be recognised and people being able to react accordingly.”

A spokesman for Sussex Police said victim support was a “priority for us” and officers had stayed in touch with Miss Hatton and referred her to other services.

Maralyn Smith, Surrey and Sussex manager for Victim Support, which helps victims of crime, said she would look into the case, adding: “Having a single point of contact for victims of crime is absolutely crucial.”

NARRATIVE - While he was still stabbing me he was blaming it on his mental health

LIVING next door to each other in their Hove bedsits, Amaris Hatton and Keith Williams would chat through their facing kitchen windows while they did the washing up.

“Whenever I was washing up it would be natural to talk,” Miss Hatton, 35, recalls. “I would not call him a close friend but it is where something begins; you are in a position where you can share opinions and you find it comfortable.

“I had also seen a friend of his with him. Seeing somebody else around who knew him helped me trust him. He was not an isolated person who grew out of nowhere.”

Having spent the last nearly 30 years in prison for killing a teenager, Williams had moved to Sackville Road after being released from prison in October.

Miss Hatton, who has three children, moved there a few months after having to leave a Brighton council house. Williams told her of his prison time, but not the full horror of what he had done to Melinda Croft in 1986.

“He told me something of it himself,” Miss Hatton recalls. “And I felt that this was very trusting and not a reason to judge someone for what I understand was time served. I am not a very judgemental person.”

Yet since her neighbour attacked her at home, Miss Hatton trusts her judgement less and less. She is afraid to leave her new flat alone, struggling to meet basic needs like getting groceries. But she is also afraid to let others in.

“I feel like I should be able to call up the shop and ask them to hop across the road with a pint of milk,” she said. “But this is not that kind of place and I am not in a position to be able to make a judgement.”

She had invited Williams in on the night of the attack. They played the computer game Grand Theft Auto on her PlayStation computer. Then he started stabbing her with a knife he had brought from his own flat.

She managed to get to the front door to scream for help, alerting a neighbour.

“He could not even wait until the end of the attack to start dismissing his behaviour in the name of mental health,” she recalled.

“He said he was having a reaction because we were playing a computer game. I cannot remember the exact words; he blamed his violent reaction on the computer game.

“It was Grand Theft Auto. At the time we were doing the graffiti mission. He did not attack me with a spray can; he attacked me with a knife that he had brought through from his flat.”

Miss Hatton spent the next five days in hospital. She needed 147 stitches in her body and an operation to remove the tip of the knife from her skull. “I patch up pretty good,” she says. “I was covered in stitches. It took the nurse all night to do them. I slept through it.”

Nearly nine months on, she struggles to make sense of what happened. First, there is Williams’ actions. Then there is the knowledge he was let out by the parole board. And that he was allowed to live next to her.

“It is the kind of thing that I used to ask myself a lot,” she recalls. “Like, what do you expect for these people to keep us safe; how much can they monitor everybody? Is our security and privacy enough to justify surveillance?

“I would ask myself these questions and know it is a difficult thing to decide. But it looks like people are just sitting in the middle and not making these decisions. Not being held accountable.

“They can see that someone who is potentially a threat is living next to someone who is potentially vulnerable and no-one is aware of that.”

Life since the attack has done little to restore her confidence. She has been moved to another bedsit in Brighton. “I was given a new box to sit in,” she says. “I was glad to be able to have a new place to go to but then it was just like I was just left here.”

Since moving, she describes being passed around between various support agencies without getting psychological and practical help.

“All I ask is that someone would be with me, something consistent,” she says. “It seems like every day there is a new organisation that I am supposed to be speaking with.

“The appointments are all in the community and I was like, ‘Could we not at least start with home visits’? But it seems very much like if you are not in a position to attend appointments, then you cannot go.

“I am not expecting the earth to be moved but the amount of struggle it required is beyond me. I became jaded very quickly.

“I could have a friend with me at home for the first couple of visits if possible. Then I would feel more confident with who I was seeing. Maybe I would have ended up looking forward to seeing them. Would that be such a travesty of justice?”

Her sister, Sophea Lerner, came over from Australia in January and tried to help. She too got frustrated with the amount of support her sister could access. She worries desperately about her and the ongoing psychological trauma.

“Imagine if you come out of your house,” she said, “and your neighbour in a non-excessive way smiles and that is a major trigger for the memory of being stabbed.”

She added: “The image that I have in my mind is that the system is like a game of Jenga and everybody is so badly trying to make sure the piece they are working on does not get pulled out that no-one notices the system has collapsed.”

Williams was sent to prison for life on Monday, for the second time. He could be eligible for parole in 16 years.