The convict, Minta Adiddo, thought his wife, Akua
Agyeman and mother of two children was having an affair with the Nigerian
neighbour.
The 32-year-old mother (pictured below) died two
months after the brutal stabbing, which was witnessed by her five-year-old
daughter.
The
38-year-old murderer (pictured below) was given a life sentence by the Old
Bailey Court after being convicted of murder, with a minimum term of 17 years.
The Sainsbury’s worker from Enfield, North London, had pleaded guilty to
manslaughter, although he denied murder.
The court heard he suspected his wife was having an
affair with their neighbour Oladapo Etti-Williams in October 2012.
Etti-Williams denied it, but said they exchanged three
to four ‘sometimes flirtatious’ texts a day – and phone records showed they had
sometimes sent as many as 80 messages in one day.
On November 5, Adiddo stabbed his wife with a large kitchen knife in their bedroom while
their one-year-old daughter slept in a cot next to them.
The assaulted woman managed to escape through the
living room window, waking neighbours with her screams.
But her husband chased her down and stabbed her again
in the street as she lay on the ground, leaving her with 15 separate stab
wounds.
When he realised she still
wasn’t dead he got in his car and tried to run her over, almost
ploughing into shocked witnesses who were tending to her.
Ms. Agyeman’s last words as she lay injured were to
ask if her children were all right.
She fought for her life in hospital for nearly two
months, but she was so badly injured that she would have been permanently
paralysed if she had survived.
Adiddo fled the scene but was arrested after police
spotted him driving his car shortly the next day still wearing his
blood-stained shirt.
In a phone call to a relative he admitted stabbing his
wife and said he planned to kill himself before police caught up with him.
When Ms. Agyeman was in the Royal London Hospital,
Adiddo sent her a Christmas card ascribing his behaviour to ‘Satan’ and
‘devils’.
‘I know the devil used Williams to destroy our family,’
he wrote. ‘Please, please, please, I need forgiveness from you – open yourself
to God.’
In victim impact statements read to the court, Ms
Agyeman’s family said the ‘vibrant, sociable and intelligent’ 32-year-old was
‘irreplaceable.’
The judge heard her relatives in Ghana were now
struggling financially without her support.
They said they had accepted Adiddo as a son and
treated him with respect and dignity ‘but all he has done is inflict pain and
suffering on our family’.
The court heard her two daughters are now being cared
for by relatives but the family are ‘forever saddened’ she won’t get to see
them grow up.
Sentencing, judge Brian Barker QC said: ‘I accept this
was not a planned killing but was done out of frustration and temper, and in my
view was cowardly and selfish.
‘This was a shocking waste of a vibrant life and loss
of a mother which will be long felt.
‘I was moved by the words of her family who described
Akua as a loving sister, caring for her children and extended family in Ghana,
and providing financially for them.
‘They feel betrayed by your actions
and find it very difficult to move on. There is nothing we can do or say to
turn back the clock but she will not be forgotten.’
PM News
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