Antiques dealer throttled daughter, 7, in her bed

A WEALTHY antiques dealer who strangled his seven-year-old daughter should have killed himself rather than her, his devastated wife has said.

Robert Peters, 56, who had been having a two-year affair behind his wife’s back, was jailed for a minimum of 24 years after throttling Sophia at their £1million home in Wimbledon, south west London.

Krittiya Peters, Sophia’s mother, said: “I always think to myself, ‘If Robert was ill, why didn’t he kill himself? Why did he kill my innocent daughter?’ If only Robert had permanently left and set up home with his mistress, I would still have [Sophia].”

Peters murdered his daughter last November, claiming later that it was part of a plan to kill the whole family because he feared his Kensingtonbased oriental antiques business was going bankrupt. Just over a month earlier, a depressed Peters had been found not to be a risk by a Merton Council child protection team, despite two attempts to kill himself in 2017.

He initially admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but confessed to murder midway through his Old Bailey trial.

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

Jailing him for life with a minimum term of 24 years, Mr Justice Edis told Peters the murder was a “determined, premeditated killing”.