DAD GETS 24 YEARS FOR GIRL’S MURDER

AN ANTIQUES dealer has been jailed for at least 24 years for killing his sevenyear-old daughter.

Robert Peters, 56, strangled Sophia Peters with a dressing gown cord just over a month after child protection officers said he was not a risk.

The former Israeli soldier BY EMILY PENNINK looked up child killers online before the murder at his £1million home in Wimbledon, London, in November, the city’s Old Bailey court heard.

Sophia woke as she was being strangled, but Peters said “sorry”, and carried on. He called 999 but she later died in hospital.

Peters was cheating on his wife and had money worries. He had attempted suicide twice that year.

He killed Sophia before she was due to return to her boarding school after the half-term break.

Peters waited until his wife had gone out before he woke Sophia up in bed by tying a cord around her neck and throttling her for up to half an hour.

Peters admitted murder. Jailing him, Mr Justice Edis said: “It is impossible to imagine the last few minutes of that child’s life.”

Sophia’s mother Krittiya said: “She was a beautiful, loving, adventurous, brave and outgoing girl. She loved to dance and sing.

“I would give anything I have to be able to bring my daughter back.

“I always think, ‘If Robert was ill, why didn’t he kill himself? Why kill my innocent daughter?’”