Who is Pietro Addis, the teenager on trial accused of murdering Sue Addis?

The court has heard that his parents split up not long after his birth and his mother died in 2009 when he was six years old; from that stage of his life he has been in the full-time care of his father, Leo, who is one of Sue Addis's three sons.

The nineteen-year-old has primarily sat in the dock with his head bowed throughout proceedings as the prosecution present its evidence to the jury as to what it claims caused him, then aged 17, to stab his grandmother in the bath 17 times on January 7, 2021.

The jury has heard that Donatello and Pinocchio, the Brighton restaurants owned by the Addis family, were a “genuinely family affair”, with Pietro himself attending catering college and working in the kitchen at Donatello.

In late December 2020, the jury was told Pietro was asked to leave his father’s home and the teenager moved in with his grandmother at her home at Cedar Gardens, Brighton, although father and son continued to see each other at Donatello.

The court has heard that on the day Sue Addis died, Pietro and Leo arranged to meet the next day to talk things through and Mr Addis agreed to collect his son from his mother's home on January 8, 2021.

Pietro moved in with his grandmother shortly before he stabbed her to death

As Rossano Scamardella QC, prosecuting, told the jury this week, what then followed in the lead-up to the death of Sue Addis is unclear.

“Only the two of them were at the house and nobody other than Mrs Addis and Pietro were witness to the events immediately before he stabbed her to death as she lay in the bath.”

In closing his opening statement Mr Scamardella added: “As tragically and bewildering as it may be Pietro Addis murdered his grandmother.”

Pietro Addis admits manslaughter but denies murder.

The trial at Lewes Crown Court, before Judge Christine Laing QC, continues.

READ MORE: Recap from day two of Sue Addis murder trial