Killer pilot should get 30 years in jail, father of murdered teen says
From and and
THE father of a British teenager murdered by her Greek husband said he will be disappointed if the killer is not jailed for at least 30 years today.
Pilot Babis Anagnostopoulos, 33, has admitted killing his wife, 19-year-old Caroline Crouch – and their dog, Roxy. But the legal system in Greece allows him to apply for a shorter prison term by arguing it was not premeditated.
With the final sentence to be handed down today, the teenager’s father, David Crouch, 78, told the Daily Mail: ‘I have been following the trial of that little weasel.
‘His story is full of inconsistencies, one moment he is expressing his undying love for Caroline and the next he is saying he was afraid of her because of her kickboxing skills.
‘I will be disappointed if he doesn’t get at least 25 years plus another five for killing her dog.’
The helicopter pilot began the trial last month by declaring: ‘My love for
‘Does not shed a single tear’
my wife hasn’t changed from the time I met her and will never change.
‘I never had any intent to harm my wife. I loved her and will continue to do so.’ And yesterday, he cried ‘crocodile tears’ in court as excerpts of his wife’s diary, in which she detailed their troubled relationship before he killed her, were read out.
It was revealed Miss Crouch told him she wanted to end their relationship in July 2020, when their baby was a month old.
Anagnostopoulos was comforted by his lawyer as the court heard that his wife also admitted that she wanted to leave before she became pregnant but changed her mind, saying: ‘I didn’t want my daughter to grow up without her parents.’
The entries also told of bitter fights between the pair, with Miss Crouch recalling one dispute where she ‘hit him’ before he ‘broke down a door’.
One read by the judge stated: ‘I fought with Babi again. This time it was serious. I hit him, I cursed at him and he broke down the door. All I wanted was for him to ask how I am when I woke up.’
While he sobbed at this, he appeared unmoved earlier when Miss Crouch’s autopsy was read to the court. It revealed that she was smothered for five minutes by Anagnostopoulos and died ‘in agony’. Her cause of death was given as asphyxiation.
After the hearing, Thanasis Harmanis, the Crouch family’s lawyer, said: ‘Babis’s crocodile tears just underline how heartless he is and are an insult to the memory of Caroline.
‘He weeps when he hears about him being attacked by Caroline but does not shed a single tear after horrible details about her death are revealed.’
Anagnostopoulos killed his wife in a rage last May but told police she died at the hands of burglars who broke in.
In a Greek legal first, Roxy is being represented by a lawyer who has argued the killer should be jailed for an extra ten years under animal murder laws.
Anagnostopoulos swept Caroline off her feet when she was just 15, flying by helicopter to the tiny island of Alonissos where she lived with David, from Liverpool, and her mother, Susan Delacuesta, Athens mixed municipal court heard.
The pair became lovers when she was 16, and married without telling her parents in 2018.