EastEnders star and kids ‘killed for trying to leave’
A FORMER EastEnders actress who was battered and stabbed to death along with her two young children by her partner was planning to take them and leave him, a court has heard. Arthur Simpson Kent killed Sian Blake, 43, and their sons, Zachary, eight, and four-year-old Amon, before burying their bodies in the garden of their home.
The Old Bailey was told that Ms Blake, the family’s main breadwinner, had recently been diagnosed with terminal motor neurone disease and that, along with their “unhealthy” relationship, led her to consider selling their home and moving back in with her close family.
The court heard that Ms Blake’s condition had weakened her arms and hands to the extent that she would not have been able to fight off an attacker.
Cannabis dealer Simpson Kent, 49, who fled to his native Ghana before being extradited back to the UK, faces a possible whole-life sentence after admitting the triple killing in Erith, south east London.
The prosecution told the court that on the night of December 14 2015, the defendant killed each of them in turn with heavy, deliberate, repeated blows with a blunt instrument, cut and stabbed them. He then covered his crimes by moving, wrapping and burying each of them, cleaning and painting his home.
Ms Blake-played Frankie Pierre in 56 episodes of the soap between 1996 and 1997.
The sentencing continues.