TORTURED, STARVED & THROWN ON A BONFIRE
Twisted couple guilty of horrific au pair murder
A COUPLE accused of torturing, murdering and burning their nanny on a bonfire because of a fantasy over an ex-boyzone star have been found guilty.
The charred glasses of “shy” and “kind” French au pair Sophie Lionnet were found in the garden along with her unrecognisable remains.
Husband and wife Ouissem Medouni, 40, and Sabrina Kouider, 35, tried to blame each other for the killing during a two-month trial in which horrifying details emerged.
Yesterday Kouider sobbed and Medouni hung his head as the guilty verdicts were announced.
Outside the Old Bailey, their victim’s mother, Catherine Devallonne, branded them “monsters”.
She said: “Sophie had only just started to live her life. No one had the right to take it away.”
According to family, Sophie was offered the au pair job after meeting Kouider’s brother in France. She left her sheltered rural home “excited at fulfilling her dreams”.
But a photo taken two days before her body was found showed her frightened, pale and emaciated.
A fish-and-chip shop owner in London who befriended her said she grabbed food as if starving and told him she was beaten.
FANTASTY
Kouider had drawn Medouni into a warped fantasy around her ex, music mogul Mark Walton.
She was fixated with the Boyzone founder, with whom she had a child, and thought he had seduced Sophie, 21, with promises of stardom.
The pair beat, starved and interrogated the au pair by dunking her head into water until she confessed to the “crimes”. And after killing her in the bath they threw her on a bonfire at their home near Wimbledon, South West London, as they barbecued chicken nearby.
When firefighters arrived they found Medouni pouring caustic soda on the remains on the patio.
The Algerian-born pair, who claimed they were cooking a sheep, had scattered chicken on the body in an attempt to disguise the smell.
At first self-styled fashion designer Kouider told police she could not remember the surname of the nanny who had cared for her two children, aged eight and four, for 18 months.
She then tried to claim Sophie had fled a few days before.
Eventually the pair admitted disposing of her body but each blamed the other for her death.
According to Kouider, Medouni tortured her in the bath and then demanded they have sex as her body lay nearby. Medouni accused his wife, claiming she woke him in panic saying, “What have I done, what have I done”.
Prosecutor Richard Horwell QC told the jury neither was prepared to admit they killed her for “revenge and punishment”.
Kouider had built a fantasy framing Mark Walton as an evil villain after their two-year affair.
And ex-banker Medouni, with whom she had a stormy 17-year on-off relationship, came to believe her
Ex Boyzone star
Mark Walton twisted story. She accused Sophie of plotting with the mogul to frame her for crimes against her children to win custody of his son.
The duo interrogated Sophie for hours to get to “the truth”, adopting “good cop, bad cop” personas.
Her ordeal ended in 12 days of imprisonment at the hands of her tormentors. Jurors heard more than eight hours of horrific recordings in which Sophie was slapped, likened to a Nazi collaborator and called “worse than a murderer”.
The court heard Kouider had reported Mr Walton to police more than 30 times since they split and received a caution for falsely branding him a paedophile on Facebook.
She also accused him of sexually abusing a cat, using black magic and spying on her from a helicopter.
Giving evidence, Los Angeles-based Mr Walton said he had been in love with Kouider but she would “flip” and go “crazy” for no reason.
Kouider also boasted she knew influential people including Donald Trump and threatened to have Sophie locked up. Blue singer Duncan James was forced to submit written evidence denying the pair’s claim he had threatened their landlord with a crowbar.
The couple will be sentenced on June 26.
After the case, Det Insp Domenica Catino said: “We will never know the full extent of the horrors Sophie had to endure.
“Even in death, the torture, abuse and humiliation continued by placing her partially clothed body into a suitcase with no regard for even a semblance of a burial before taking the callous decision to burn her in an attempt to hide their murderous act.”