Couple guilty of murdering their French nanny

COURT: Victim killed over shared fixation with woman’s former pop star boyfriend

A couple who killed their French nanny over a bizarre obsession with an ex-Boyzone pop star were branded “monsters” as they were convicted of murder.

Sabrina Kouider, 35, and Ouissem Medouni, 40, built a warped fantasy around music mogul Mark Walton and accused Sophie Lionnet of being in league with him.

Having beaten, imprisoned and tortured the shy 21-year-old to death at their home, they threw the body on a bonfire, the Old Bailey heard.

Fashion designer Kouider wept and her banker husband Medouni hung his head as a jury convicted them of murder after nearly 30 hours of deliberations.

Miss Lionnet’s mother, Catherine Devallonne, also wept as Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC said the defendants’ claims about her daughter contained “no truth whatsoever”.

Mrs Devallonne said: “Those monsters repeatedly beat Sophie. They starved, tortured and broke her until she could no longer fight.”

The victim’s father, Patrick Lionnet, said: “Sabrina and Ouissem have not only stolen the life of my daughter so brutally and without remorse, they have also stolen mine.”

Kouider was fixated with her ex-boyfriend, Mr Walton, and Medouni bought into the fantasy. Over five years, Kouider reported the wealthy musician to police more than 30 times and branded him a paedophile on a fake Facebook profile.

In evidence, Mr Walton said he had been “in love” with Kouider but she would “flip”andg o“crazy”for no reason.

The mother-of-two went on to claim Mr Walton had seduced Miss Lionnet and promised her Hollywood stardom.

She and her on-off husband Medouni interrogated Miss Lionnet for hours to get to “the truth” .

Mrs Devallonne had begged Kouider to send her daughter home but she refused.

In a filmed “confession”, the emaciated and broken young woman admitted she had drugged Medouni so Mr Walton could sexually assault him, and was dead hours later.

Firefighters were alerted by neighbours to pungent smelling smoke last September as the defendants tried burning her body in the garden of their flat near Wimbledon, London.

They later admitted disposing of Miss Lionnet’s body but denied her murder, blaming each other for her death.

Prosecutor Richard Horwell QC told jurors neither were prepared to admit the truth – that they killed her out of “revenge and punishment”.

Judge Hilliard will sentence the pair at the Old Bailey on June 26.

Picture: PA. Ouissem Medouni and Sabrina Kouider were convicted at the Old Bailey of murdering their French nanny Sophie Lionnet.

Sophie Lionnet was killed by the couple who then tried to burn her body.