Couple who murdered French nanny and burned her body in garden jailed for life

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A “cruel and evil” couple have been jailed for life for murdering their French nanny and burning her body.

Sabrina Kouider and Ouissem Medouni starved, tortured and beat 21-year-old Sophie Lionnet over 12 days of “interrogations” where she was whipped with a cable and suffered five fractured ribs and a cracked breast bone.

The couple forced Ms Lionnet to appear in a filmed “confession” hours before she was killed in the bath at the home they shared with their two children on 20 September.

Their trial at the Old Bailey heard Kouider had been consumed by a bizarre fantasy that the young nanny was in league with Boyzone founder Mark Walton, her former partner and father of her youngest child.

The couple tried to cover up their crime by burning Ms Lionnet’s body on a bonfire in their back garden near Wimbledon in southwest London.

But concerned neighbours called the fire brigade, who were made suspicious by Medouni’s claim that he was “cooking a sheep”, and alerted police.

French nationals Kouider, 35, and Medouni, 40, admitted perverting the course of justice over disposing of their victim’s body, but denied murder and were convicted at trial.

Jailing the pair for life with a minimum term of 30 years, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC said Kouider’s allegations against their victim and Mr Walton were a “complete fiction”.

“It is plain from all the evidence that Sophie was a kind, gentle and good-natured girl,” he said, condemning the “horrible cruelty” and “humiliation” the defendants exacted on Ms Lionnet.

“The suffering and the torture you put her through before her death was prolonged and without pity.”

The judge rejected claims by Kouider, who suffered delusions and personality disorder, that she was trying to extract criminal evidence, adding: “You knew...she was in a dreadful state by the time of her death and torturing her in the bath was totally and utterly wrong”.

Kouider and Medouni had blamed each other for the murder, with prosecutors saying neither were prepared to admit the truth – that they killed Ms Lionnet out of “revenge and punishment”.

She had been caring for their two boys for 18 months while being subjected to mistreatment, threats and physical abuse that broke her down and made her a prisoner in their home.

Other local nannies observed that Ms Lionnet seemed to think it was normal that she was barely paid, and dropped hints over time that she was scared, while a fish and chip shop owner recalled her grabbing food as if starving.

The court heard that Kouider was obsessed with her ex-partner Mr Walton, and accused Ms Lionnet of helping him concoct a plot that would win Mr Walton custody of his son and see her and Medouni framed for crimes against their children.

Kouider made a series of unsubstantiated allegations against Mr Walton, now a music producer living in Los Angeles, to police following the end of their two-year relationship.

Her escalating delusions saw her falsely claim that Ms Lionnet had obtained heroin and let Mr Walton into the family home in order to drug the family, sexually abuse the children and frame Medouni.

The couple made the nanny write fake “confession” notes and pressured her to say she was in love with Mr Walton and conspiring with him, escalating the abuse when she refused.

In handwritten notes seen by the jury, Ms Lionnet denied harming the children and begged to be allowed to visit her family in France, writing “I want to leave” and “I am scared”.

In a letter to her father sent in June 2017, she said she was “very worried” and had been accused of “things I would never do”.

Three months later Medouni, a self-employed businessman, and Kouider, a self-styled fashion designer who liked to boast of mixing with celebrities, forced their victim to confess to a series of false allegations in “interrogations” conducted over 12 days.

On her phone, Kouider recorded and filmed eight hours of the torture during which she played ‘hard cop’ to Medouni’s ‘soft cop’ and planned to hand the recordings to police as supposed evidence of the nanny’s guilt.

Jurors were played audio of Kouider ranting and screaming crude sexualised insults at her victim in French and English, while Medouni told Ms Lionnet to “tell the truth”.

The victim barely made a sound on the tapes, only occasionally denying the accusations and saying “sorry” or “no”.

A still image of Ms Lionnet from a video on 18 September shows her with her eyes downcast, looking scared, pale and emaciated – and just two days later, on 20 September, firefighters made the horrific discovery of her body on the patio in the back garden.

Medouni was trying to burn her corpse with caustic acid and started cooking food on a barbecue in an attempt to disguise his purpose, but was arrested at the scene.

Detective Inspector Domenica Catino, of the Met’s Homicide and Major Crime Command, said the “cruel, evil” killers put Ms Lionnet’s partially clothed body into a suitcase before setting it on fire, adding: “There were no boundaries for these two; no humanity, no compassion.”

Kouider was detained later that evening after returning home with her children. She repeated false allegations against Ms Lionnet to police, claiming she did not know her nanny’s surname and that she had fled the house days before.

Several witnesses at the trial testified to Kouider’s violent and sudden tempers, while Mr Walton confirmed to court he had never even met or communicated with Ms Lionnet.

Her mother, Catherine Devallonne, said: “These self-obsessed individuals who murdered Sophie did not believe Sophie had a value… they took away her dignity, and finally her life painfully ebbed away until Sophie struggled to take her final terrified breath in the bath.

“No god will ever forgive you both for what you have done.”

The victim’s father, Patrick Lionnet, said what the couple did to his shy and reserved daughter was “beyond comprehension” and “unforgivable”.

In a letter addressed “dear Sophie”, Kouider acknowledged the suffering of her victim and her family, claiming she was “deeply sorry about what happened to Sophie”.

Additional reporting by PA