A WOMAN with a mental age of six who was sent to a mental hospital without limit of time after fatally stabbing a man, has failed in a test case challenge to her detention.

Heather Grant, 39, was found unfit to stand trial on a charge of murdering her boyfriend, John Mills, 42, who was found in May last year in a pool of blood in their flat in North Shields.

She faced no criminal charge, but in a special hearing at Newcastle Crown Court in April a jury returned a finding that she had carried out the frenzied attack.

The judge was obliged to make a mandatory order that she be detained in a mental hospital indefinitely.

Her lawyers argued at London's High Court that it amounted to a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Her counsel, Patrick Cosgrove, QC, said it was wrong that her legal team had had no say on whether or not she was charged with murder or manslaughter. If she had been fit for trial, she would have put forward a defence of provocation.

Dismissing the chall-enge, Mr Justice Rich-ards said: "A person has no right to have a say in the form of charge brought against him."