A mentally ill man has admitted strangling his mother.

Barry Levitt, 36, of Stoneleigh Road, Bromley, was charged with murdering 68-year-old Celia Levitt on the afternoon of Friday, August 31.

At a hearing at the Old Bailey, Levitt denied the charge but pleaded guilty to an alternative offence of manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC asked for more time to consider the plea as a further psychiatric report is prepared.

Judge Wendy Joseph QC remanded Levitt into custody until March 1.

Mrs Levitt, who lived in France, was found dead in a bedroom of her son’s south London home.

A post-mortem examination found she had been strangled.