A man who killed two British backpackers in Australia won't face trial because of mental illness.

Mia Ayliffe-Chung and Tom Jackson were stabbed at a hostel in Queensland in 2016 - while Chris Porter from High Halstow was injured when he jumped from a window to escape.

A judge has ruled Frenchman Smail Ayad isn't criminally culpable because he has paranoid schizophrenia.

Justice Jean Dalton discontinued criminal proceedings against Ayad, 30, after it was found he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the attack.

It is understood he was delusional at the time and he thought people wanted to kill him.

The matter was decided at a hearing held in court in Brisbane yesterday when the judge was told Ayad was of unsound mind when he stabbed Miss Ayliffe-Chung , 21, and Mr Jackson, 30, at the Home Hill Backpackers hostel in August 2016.

Ayad apparently feared there was an international conspiracy to kill him and attacked Miss Ayliffe-Chung, a student from Wirksworth, in Derbyshire, late at night inside the hostel 60 miles south of the Queensland city of Townsville.

Mr Jackson rushed to Ms Ayliffe-Chung’s aid when he heard her scream, but was also attacked and later died of his injuries.

Mr Porter, who was friends with Miss Ayliffe-Chung and was 21 at the time, leapt from the window of the hostel during the attack in August, after warning others to barricade themselves in their rooms.

After the news broke Ayad would not be facing trial, Mr Porter posted on Facebook.

He said: "Gutted is an understatement, I was told this outcome was a high possibility, but I refused to believe it."

The Australian court heard Ayad dragged Miss Ayliffe-Chung from her bed at the Home Hill hostel and stabbed her multiple times.

The hostel manager tried to stop him after the fatal attack, but was himself stabbed in the leg.

Ayad jumped headfirst from the first-floor balcony, sustaining neck and back fractures in the fall. He then got up and stabbed the hostel owner’s dog.

“This was an extraordinary action and, I think, in the context of all this offending, points to how frightened he was and how ill he was,” Judge Dalton said.

Ayad returned to the room where he had killed Miss Ayliffe-Chung and repeatedly stabbed Mr Jackson.

He had smoked up to four joints of cannabis a day for years before the attack and was under the delusion that 50 farmers and hostel staff wanted to kill him and would burn his body in a pizza oven.