Sisters killed ‘in sacrifice to win lottery’, court hears

A teenager made a pact with the devil, vowing to sacrifice women in exchange for a lottery win, before he ‘‘butchered’’ two sisters at a birthday picnic, a court was told.

Danyal Hussein, 18, allegedly left a note signed in his own blood, promising to sacrifice six women every six months before he carried out the ‘‘savage attack’’ in a park in west London last summer. He denies two charges of murder and possessing a knife.

Bibaa Henry, 46, senior social worker in Buckinghamshire, and Nicole Smallman, 27, a freelance photographer a – daughters of the first black woman to be made a Church of England archdeacon – had been celebrating Henry’s birthday with friends in Fryent Country Park, Wembley, on June 7 last year and stayed on after others had left, Oliver Glasgow QC said.

‘‘The two of them lit fairy lights, listened to music and danced,’’ he said. ‘‘Their affection for each other and their shared delight at being together is obvious from the photographs and videos that were taken that evening. What those images do not capture is what was to happen to the two of them once their friends had left.’’

Friends organised a search at the park two days later when neither woman could be contacted. One friend found two pairs of spectacles. The father of Adam Stone, another friend, then found a bloodstained knife before Stone followed a trail of flattened grass into the undergrowth and found the women hacked to death in a hedge, their bodies on their sides, top-to-toe with limbs intertwined, Glasgow said.

Henry had been stabbed eight times and had wounds to the chest, back and groin but showed no signs of having fought back, which Glasgow said indicated that she had been the first victim.

Her younger sister was stabbed 28 times with deep knife blows to the back and chest. She had numerous apparent defensive wounds ‘‘doubtless because she knew what was about to happen having seen her sister slaughtered before her eyes’’, Glasgow told the Old Bailey. Smallman ‘‘must have done all she could to try to stop the defendant, and perhaps that explains the appalling savagery of the violence she suffered’’.

A police search of Hussein’s father’s house, which is near an entrance to the park, recovered a letter to a demon addressed as ‘‘the mighty king Lucifuge Rofocale’’ in which Hussein promised to make a minimum of six sacrifices every six months ‘‘for as long as I am free’’, build a temple to the demon and to ‘‘sacrifice only women’’.

He hoped to win the Mega Millions super jackpot in exchange, but ‘‘the demon did not come good on the bargain’’, Glasgow said. Hussein, of Blackheath, southeast London, denies that he wrote the letter.

Hussein allegedly cut his hand during the attack. ‘‘The defendant managed to leave his blood and DNA all over the picnic site, the deposition site, the bodies and the knife. It was this mistake that has proved to be his downfall,’’ Glasgow said. His blood was found on two latex gloves that were so heavily bloodstained that they were dark red or almost black, Glasgow said.

Picnic blankets stained with his blood were later found in bin bags that had been collected. With them was a birthday card addressed to Henry.