Shakira Spencer: Chilling final CCTV images of mother starved and murdered by trio jailed for life
Shakira Spencer’s killers were jailed for life at the Old Bailey on Friday
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Chilling CCTV images have been released showing the gaunt frame of a mother days before she beaten to death after being starved and tortured.
Ashana Studholme, 38, her lover Shaun Pendlebury, 26, and their friend Lisa Richardson, 44, were each jailed for life on Friday for the murder of Shakira Spencer in west London, having inflicted a “sadistic campaign” against her that ended with her dying in a cupboard.
The 35-year-old was found dead in her flat in Ealing when neighbours saw maggots coming from under her front door.
CCTV recovered by the police showed the last time Spencer was seen in public, slowly crossing a road around the time of the assault which killed her.
The “beautiful, happy, healthy” 35-year-old fell under the influence of the trio, and would be woken up in the early hours to clean their homes or be sent on errands to the shops over many months in which she was isolated and robbed of her money.
They also scalded Ms Spencer’s feet and fed her only ketchup from sachets, inflicting months of torture in which she became “skeletal”, going from a size 16 dress size to a six. Messages found on her killers’ phones included videos of Ms Spencer being beaten up, while others laughed and jeered.
The trio’s abuse of Ms Spencer came to a climax when she was beaten in a “frenzied, violent assault” between 9 and 12 September 2022.
Pendlebury and Studholme then took her to her home where she was left to die in cupboard less than a week later, a trial last year heard, in which the three defendants were all convicted of murder and preventing Ms Spencer from receiving a lawful burial.
They were each jailed for life with a minimum of 34 years at the Old Bailey on Friday, with judge Angela Rafferty KC describing her treatment as an “orgy of violence”, adding: “This was a sadistic campaign in which you all took pleasure in inflicting pain and suffering on a vulnerable woman.”
Ms Spencer’s son, who canot be named for legal reasons, described the trio who killed his mother as “cruel and evil” in an impact statement read out at Friday’s hearing, saying: “I’ve suffered with daily nightmares and anxiety over what happened to her, I cannot get the horrible image of my mother looking skinny and unwell out of my head.
“Why were they so heartless? What could cause them to torture another human? I hope that every day they feel bad for the choices they have made. I cannot believe people she thought were her friends would ever do this to her. These people are cruel and evil, they do not deserve to live a normal happy life again.”