A man who stabbed a nine-year-old girl in the heart while she played with a hula hoop in the street was “quite obviously deluded” a murder trial has heard.

Deividas Skebas, 26, attacked Lilia Valutyte in the centre of Boston, Lincolnshire while she was playing outside her mother’s embroidery shop on 28 July 2022.

Man killed nine-year-old girl Lilia Valutyte as she played in street, as judge hands out indefinite hospital order | LBC

Skebas, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, denies murder but admits manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility.

On the second day of his trial at Lincoln Crown Court, defence barrister Andrew Campbell-Tiech KC argued that Skebas, who appeared via videolink from high security facility Rampton Hospital in Nottinghamshire, was “deluded”.

Mr Campbell-Tiech said: “Those who are directly touched by [Lilia’s death] had their lives ruined. Nobody wins. It’s only a question of who loses more.

“Treating clinicians doubt that [Skebas] will recover. His future is not one that any of us would wish for ourselves or our children.”

Devidas Skebas admits manslaughter but denies murder.Credit: PA

The court heard that after the killing, Skebas said he had “the power to resurrect” Lilia if the police contacted “his controller in Nasa”.

Mr Campbell-Tiech said: “In other words, he was quite obviously deluded.”

He said the prosecution’s case that Skebas “wickedly murdered a random child” was unfounded.

“The act is wicked but the person who committed it may not be so defined,” Mr Campbell-Tiech said.

Jurors have been told that Lithuanian national Skebas who moved back to the UK just weeks before Lilia died.

Earlier on Tuesday jurors heard a statement written by Lilia’s mother, Lina Savickiene, who said she found the girl “covered in blood and with the hoop around her” after the stabbing.

Prosecutor Christopher Donnellan KC said she initially thought “something might have happened” with the hula hoop.

Mrs Savickiene said in her statement: “She was getting pale. She collapsed in my hands. I saw the wounds, started to cover them.

“I just got scared, started to shout for somebody to help me.”

The court heard that earlier in the day, Mrs Savickiene and Lilia went into town for lunch and to do some shopping, before she let the girl play outside in Fountain Lane from about 5pm because the street was “quiet”.

Mr Donnellan said Lilia had been “in and out” of the shop and the mother checked her “quite often”, before she heard her child call out for help.

The trial continues.