On a sunny family day out, mother accused of murdering her 2 girls
HOLDING hands and smiling happily for the camera, it is a perfect family snapshot of a mother and her two young daughters.
But Samira Lupidi, 24, was due to appear before magistrates yesterday charged with murdering her little girls.
She is accused of killing one-yearold Jasmine Weaver and threeyear-old Evelyn Lupidi while they were all staying at a women’s refuge in Bradford.
The children suffered a horrific end, with post-mortem examinations concluding they died from multiple stab wounds.
The circumstances leading up to their deaths have yet to be revealed. Lupidi was supposed to make a brief first appearance at Bradford magistrates’ court yesterday but her lawyer, Alison Todd, told the court that she was not in the dock because she had refused to leave her cell due to her ‘distraught state’.
Lupidi, who is understood to be an Italian national who had been living in the UK, was remanded in custody to appear before the city’s crown court on Monday.
The children’s father has been named as Carl Weaver, 31, who was not available for comment yesterday. Both the mother and father’s Facebook pages have numerous loving family pictures of the children.
Details of why Lupidi and her children had moved to the refuge will be revealed in court at a later date.
Police and paramedics were called to the refuge run by Bradford Women’s Aid at 11.30am on Tuesday.
Despite desperate efforts by paramedics, the children could not be saved. Lupidi was arrested at the scene and taken into custody by police.
The tragic deaths of the children has sent shockwaves through the local community and stunned their relatives.
Julie Britton, an aunt of the children’s father, said: ‘Carl’s just absolutely devastated. It’s like a bomb has gone off in the middle of our family.’
The Bradford refuge has accommodation for six women and their families. It received a £469,000 lottery grant this year.
One neighbour, Joanne Shoesmith, 45, a mother-of-two, said: ‘When I heard, it left a lump in my throat. It’s shocking and so sad.’