A man has denied beheading a grandmother with a machete in her back garden on the grounds of insanity.
Nicholas Salvador, 25, is accused of killing Palmira Silva, 82, outside her home in Nightingale Road, Edmonton, north London, last September.
During a brief hearing at the Old Bailey, jobless Salvador, of Gilda Avenue, Enfield, north London, entered a not guilty plea to the murder of Mrs Silva "by reason of insanity".
He also denied a second charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, citing the same reason.
He was remanded in custody until a two-day trial fixed to start at the Old Bailey on Monday June 22.
Mrs Silva moved to London from her native Italy with her husband Domenico six decades ago. They married and had a daughter, Celestina, and a son, Rino.
She ran a successful restaurant business with her husband, and owned several snack bars across London.
An array of floral tributes were left outside the family's restaurant, Silva's Cafe, in Church Street, near Edmonton Green station, after the attack.
