A couple who tortured their French au pair before burning her body in their garden have been convicted of her murder. Why did Sabrina Kouider and Ouissem Medouni kill 21-year-old Sophie Lionnet?

As a motive for murder, it is bizarre beyond belief.
Kouider, 35, suspected her former boyfriend Mark Walton, a founding member of the Irish pop group Boyzone, was having an affair with her young au pair.
The Old Bailey heard how she and 40-year-old Medouni applied “pressure and relentless intimidation” on Miss Lionnet to admit being in a sexual relationship with Mr Walton.
They insisted their young au pair had helped him come to the couple’s home in the London suburb of Southfields to drug and sexually abuse the occupants.
Hours of footage recorded by Kouider and Medouni over several months showed a terrified Miss Lionnet also being accused of being a paedophile and a spy.
Threatened with rape, prison and more violence, she eventually made a confession to having an affair with Mr Walton – a man who told the couple’s trial that she’d never even met.
Soon after she was dead.

Miss Lionnet, from Troyes in north-east France, had moved to the UK in January 2016 in order to improve her English.
“She was a pearl. Kind, gentle. She loved everyone, she loved making people happy,” her aunt said, speaking about her niece at a march held a month after Miss Lionnet’s death.
During the au pair’s employment by the couple, she became known to various people in the Southfields community.
Local restaurant owner Michael Cromer, who had been in talks with Kouider and Medouni to go into business together, said Miss Lionnet would join them when they went to meet him.

She would sometimes also visit his fish and chip restaurant alone. “She was always very quiet. She didn’t want to communicate much,” Mr Cromer said. The business owner could sense the au pair was struggling but never imagined what was happening at the couple’s home.
“Her body language showed there was something wrong… there were times when she had tears in her eyes so I asked her why and she said her mum was not well.
“Once she said Sabrina beat her… I asked why, and she said she had dropped the butter.”

In reality, the abuse had been going on for some time. The videos of the couple’s interrogations of her showed the 21-year-old becoming thinner over the months.
It was only after it was too late that the alarm would be raised, albeit inadvertently, by neighbours who called 999 over a foul-smelling fire in the garden.
Thomas Hunt, one of the first firefighters on the scene, soon realised a body had been burnt when he spotted a nose and fingers in the remnants of the fire, as well as clothes and jewellery.

He told the jury that when he turned to Medouni, the defendant told him it was the carcass of a sheep.
Miss Lionnet’s body was so badly burnt the exact cause of her death has never been established, although post-mortem tests showed she had suffered fractures to her sternum, four ribs and her jawbone in the days before her death in September of last year.
In court, the couple blamed each other for the violence suffered by their au pair. Summing up the prosecution’s case, Richard Howell QC described the “odd couple” as a “truly toxic combination”.

Faced with such torment, why did the 21-year-old not abandon the couple’s home on Wimbledon Park Road?
Ruth Bowskill, a chief prosecutor at the CPS, said Miss Lionnet had wanted to leave and had written to her family in France telling them this.
However, she believes Kouider and Medouni manipulated the “particularly shy” au pair, who knew little English, gaining control over her.
“Given the intimidation, the bullying and the behaviour towards her… it’s likely that she didn’t feel able to leave,” Ms Bowskill said.
Investigators also never found the au pair’s passport and a plane ticket her mother had bought her to return to France and believe the couple may have confiscated them.

A thin-looking Miss Lionnet was filmed during a visit to a boxing gym in London a year before her death
The court was told about Kouider’s erratic behaviour, including during her two-year relationship with Mr Walton. She was accused of making up “dreadful stories about people, often of a sexual nature” and picking on those she saw as “weak”.The jury heard on one occasion she called police and accused Mr Walton of sexually abusing her cat – even though she did not have one. She also accused him and his friends of flying helicopters over her home. The court was told that in May 2017 Kouider was diagnosed with depression and borderline personality disorder.

While they would never have believed Kouider was capable of murder, some within the community had experienced how volatile the fashion designer could be. “Sabrina was quirky, she had a bit of a temper,” said Sunil Patel, who runs the local newsagent. Mr Patel was aware of Kouider’s fixation with Mr Walton. “She was obsessed with this guy… she said ‘have you seen this person’, and she showed me this photo of a blond-haired man on her phone.”

Mr Patel said that when he asked what had happened, she explained that he was “a very dangerous person” who had hurt her family. “I said ‘why didn’t your nanny say anything about it?’, and she said the nanny was complicit.” Mr Patel said although he thought Kouider’s behaviour was “weird” he never imagined that her au pair, who also regularly visited the shop, was in any danger.  Sadly, he was wrong.  Speaking in October, Miss Lionnet’s aunt described Kouider and Medouni as “utterly contemptible”. “I hope they pay a very high price.
” https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-44120874

Sabrina Kouider and her partner Ouissem Medouni are accused of torturing and killing Sophie Lionnet last September. The pair have blamed one another for Ms Lionnet’s death. Ms Kouider, 35 and Mr Medouni, 40, admit burning Ms Lionnet’s body in the garden of their home in Wimbledon, but deny murder. Ms Kouider previously admitted being violent towards Ms Lionnet.

The defendant told jurors “I did not imprison Sophie, OK?” and insisted the nanny could have gone home to Paris at any time up until her death. She said she paid her £50 a week, but the prosecution said she did not pay the 21-year-old, who did not have enough money to buy a ticket home.
Prosecutor Richard Horwell QC challenged Ms Kouider’s insistence that Ms Lionnet could have gone home.
In a recorded phone call last August, Ms Lionnet’s mother Catherine Devallonne pleaded for her daughter to return to France.
However, Ms Kouider blocked the move and said she wanted to “keep Sophie” until she had told her where she had been with Boyzone founder Mark Walton, the court heard.
Mr Horwell said: “Do you know what is so tragic about this conversation? It is the very last conversation she had with her daughter.” Jurors were previously told that the defendants became convinced Ms Lionnet was in league with Mr Walton, and conspired with him to drug and molest the family.
The trial continues.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-44012106

A woman accused of killing her French nanny admitted hitting her but insisted “it doesn’t make me a murderer”.
Sabrina Kouider and her partner Ouissem Medouni are accused of torturing and killing Sophie Lionnet then putting her body on a bonfire last September.
Jurors have been told the couple believed the 21-year-old was conspiring to drug and molest the family with Kouider’s ex-boyfriend Mark Walton, founder of Boyzone.
Ms Kouider was challenged by her partner’s defence barrister on how often she had attacked Ms Lionnet at her home in Wimbledon.
She said: “Once when I hit her with a cable and a second time when I pushed her, and again a third time. “I never deny I did hit Sophie – it doesn’t make me a murderer.” Ms Kouider said while Ms Lionnet was living with her they had a “good time” together, doing a makeover and chatting over cups of tea. Orlando Pownall QC asked about hours of taped interrogations about Mr Walton, which culminated in a videoed confession shortly before Ms Lionnet died.
He said: “You make promises to her. You were saying to her if you want to go (home) you have to admit to this and you said to her ‘you were seen to do this’ and ‘I saw you’, ‘I dreamed it’.”
Ms Kouider admitted she was trying to trick Ms Lionnet into a confession.

She went on to accuse police of not taking her complaints about Mr Walton seriously because “I’m not white”, the court heard. Mr Pownall gave examples of her “imaginings” such as helicopters hovering over the house, which Ms Kouider told the jury were down to “Mark Walton and his friends”. The 35-year-old also denied a suggestion she stamped and kicked Miss Lionnet before her death, fracturing four ribs and cracking her sternum.  “I did not kill Sophie. He (Mr Medouni) is the one who murdered her,” she said. Concluding his questioning, Mr Pownall asserted that Ms Kouider had an “obsession with Mark Walton and sex. You are somebody who has been violent to many, many people.” She replied: “I can shout, I can argue but it does not make me a murderer.” The defendants have admitted perverting the course of justice, but deny murder. The trial continues.

Sabrina Kouider told the Old Bailey she cried when her partner Ouissem Medouni said he wanted to have sex following Sophie Lionnet’s death.
Ms Lionnet’s burned body was found in her employers’ garden at their family home in Southfields, south-west London. The 35-year-old and Mr Medouni, 40, admit burning Ms Lionnet’s body, but deny her murder.Ms Kouider claimed her partner tortured the 21-year-old au pair by dunking her head in a saucepan of water in the bathroom.She said she was then told to lie to police by Mr Medouni when Ms Lionnet’s body was found on a bonfire in the garden.
“Everything I done (sic), I did it for him,” Ms Kouider told the court. “He wanted to have sex with me. I’m even shocked to talk about it,” she said. Asked by Mr Medouni’s barrister Orlando Pownall QC if she was talking “nonsense” she replied: “I said ‘What are you doing?’ When he finished he said he was so stressed.” “I was shocked. I was not myself. I didn’t say ‘don’t do that’ but I was crying while he was doing that,” she said.

Mr Pownall then suggested the two defendants’ cases were “mirror images” of each other, with both blaming the other for being violent towards Ms Lionnet on the evening she died. Ms Kouider replied that she “was not violent” and had also “never made a false accusation against anybody”. When asked about a diagnosis in May 2017 of depression and borderline personality disorder the 35-year-old admitted she had not been “well”.

Mr Pownall told the defendant she made up “dreadful stories about people, often of a sexual nature” and picked on “weak” people.
He spoke about a number of police reports from when Ms Kouider was living with founder member of Boyzone Mark Walton, including allegations she made that he sexually abused her cat.
“Are you seriously suggesting Mr Walton sexually abused the cat? We have heard the evidence of Mr Walton, you didn’t have a cat and he did not sexually abuse it,” he said.
Ms Kouider told the court she was “not crazy” and “not losing my mind”. She also denied she was obsessed with Mr Walton and had been more concerned about her fashion business than thinking about her music mogul ex-boyfriend when they broke up.
The court has heard the defendants became convinced Miss Lionnet was in league with Mr Walton and conspired with him to drug and molest the family before her death. Ms Kouider and Mr Medouni have admitted perverting the course of justice but deny murder. The trial continues.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-43977752

She told jurors she had also pushed the au pair in early August when she found her looking at papers in the house.
“Sophie was sitting there near a library where I have some documents and she was going through some files,” she added.
“I pushed her and took the papers from her and asked ‘What are you doing?’
“I did not hit her. I didn’t do anything else. I did not kick her – I just pushed her.”
On 12 July, Ms Kouider said she confronted Miss Lionnet in the kitchen for not organising the family breakfast.
She said: “It made me upset and I said to Sophie ‘I’m sick and tired of you lying all the time’.
“Sophie stayed quiet. She was in my way so I just pushed her because I wanted to go outside for a cigarette.”
Ms Kouider was asked about CCTV footage she sent to her former friend Nicole Vatonavimlakul showing Sophia walking around her home.
Icah Peart QC, defending, asked: “Were you deliberately spying on Sophie?”
“Not at all. It was for safety,” she replied.
The trial continues.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-43952116