Millionaire & Restaurant Owner, Sue Addis M3rdered By Her Grandson

Millionaire & Restaurant Owner, Sue Addis M3rdered By Her Grandson

A millionaire restaurateur was stabbed to death by her own grandson after she became concerned with how much cannabis he was smoking, a court heard.

Sue Addis, 69, who owned the popular Brighton restaurants Donatello’s and Pinocchio’s, was attacked by grandson Pietro as she lay in the bath at her £1million home.

In a brutal attack, he stabbed her no fewer than 17 times with at least two knives, causing fatal injuries to her chest and neck.

Lewes Crown Court heard he allegedly called 999 and said: ‘I’m calling to turn myself in. There’s been a murder.’

Today, Pietro Addis, now 19, who admits killing his grandmother but denies murdering her went on trial.

The court heard Addis attacked his grandmother during the third pandemic lockdown on January 7 in 2021.

The jury heard the teenager was from a well-known family who ran a chain of Italian restaurants in Brighton.

A student at a catering college in Brighton, he had ambitions to become a chef and worked at the family restaurant.

Mrs Addis was a hugely respected figure in the Brighton business community and first opened Donatello’s and Pinocchio’s in the 1970s.

Her three sons Leo, Stefano and Mikele all worked at the restaurants which were among the most popular in the seaside resort and attracted celebrities like actor Bill Nighy, model Katie Price, actress Michelle Collins and a host of Premier League footballers.

The court heard Pietro had been diagnosed with ADHD and had been prescribed medication for the condition.

But as well as taking the prescription medication he had also started smoking cannabis and taking anti-depressants, and his behaviour had deteriorated.

He began to skip college and often failed to turn up for work at the family restaurant.

The court heard he would smoke one or two cannabis joints an evening, three or four times a week.

The teenager had been living with his father, Leo, and his stepmother during lockdown in Brighton but after an argument he moved out and went to stay with his grandmother.

His father believed the ADHD medicine he had been prescribed was largely to blame for his son’s problems and would flush the drugs down the toilet.

This led to arguments in the house and in late December it was decided the teenager would go and live with his grandmother at her home in Withdean.

His grandmother had told friends, Sue Eastman and Denise Taylor, she was increasingly concerned about his cannabis use.

She also wrote to Dr Daphne Keen, the psychologist who diagnosed his ADHD in 2018, that her grandson was continually smoking ‘weed’, which when combined with his drugs had made him listless and slow.

She told her: ‘He is suffering paranoia and we are all getting annoyed with him rather than helping. He still says he can’t do anything without the Elvanse [his ADHD drug] but with the weed as well he has become impossible to reason with.

‘He just wants to sit in his room all day and it is an effort to get him to do anything.’

As well as using cannabis, Addis was also taking Xanax, an anti-depressant.

Friend George Cameron said he had noticed a huge change in the teenager in the months leading up to the killing.

He told police his friend had become ‘negative and despondent’ and had also become quite paranoid.

In the days leading up to the alleged murder Addis had also been acting very strangely.

He had started banging on his grandmother’s bedroom door at night telling her he loved her.

The court heard Pietro’s parents split up not long after his birth and his mother died when he was six years old.

In the summer of 2019, Pietro began smoking cannabis.

Prosecutor Rossano Scamardella KC told the court: ‘It seems that Pietro was selling clothes to fund his cannabis habit.’

He added that, on the day of her death, Mrs Addis returned from working at Donatello’s around 4pm and began searching online for treatment for her grandson.

Forensic officers found three knives at the scene. The first was a large black handled knife found near a bathmat found near the bath. The second was a smaller black handled knife found underneath Mrs Addis’ body when she was lifted from the bath. Finally, the police found a third knife inside a jacket recovered from Pietro’s bedroom.

Addis has admitted manslaughter but denied a charge of murder.

The trial continues.

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