Greek pilot sentenced to life for killing wife
Tribunal finds man guilty of premeditated murder in ‘heinous’ case hailed by lawyers as ‘historic’
‘Caroline is now a symbol of the struggle against violence towards women’
A GREEK helicopter pilot who murdered his British wife before trying to cover his tracks with an elaborate ruse was yesterday sentenced to life in prison.
Babis Anagnostopoulos, 34, smothered Caroline Crouch, whom he had described as “the woman of his life”, for six minutes in front of their baby daughter at their maisonette home north of Athens, a court heard.
Anagnostopoulos also strangled the family’s pet dog, an act that he later told police was the work of a gang of ruthless robbers who invaded their suburban home looking for cash and valuables.
But yesterday, a mixed tribunal of judges and jurors at a court in Athens unanimously found Anagnostopoulos guilty of the premeditated murder of Ms Crouch, 20, in May last year. He was also found guilty of two counts of perverting the course of justice.
The case was hailed by Greek lawyers as “historic” as Ms Crouch had become a “symbol” of violence perpetrated against women by their partners.
The court handed down the maximum possible sentence, with judges ruling that there were no mitigating circumstances in the case.
The verdict means that under Greek law he will serve up to 20 years in jail.
Thanasis Harmanis, the lawyer for Ms Crouch’s family, said: “It was a heinous crime. It was a crime during which for six minutes and 42 seconds the ‘woman of his life’ as he called her was dying in his hands, but he still didn’t back down once. It was a historic trial. Caroline is now a symbol of the struggle against violence towards women.”
The Uk-trained pilot, 34, stared straight ahead as a judge delivered the verdict.
He initially claimed that three robbers had burst into the couple’s home north of Athens, tying him to a chair, stringing up their puppy, named Roxy, from a banister and asphyxiating his wife in front of their 11-month-old daughter, Lydia.
He stuck to the charade for more than a month, delivering a eulogy at her funeral where he hugged his mother-inlaw.
This continued until police uncovered evidence that proved his story was a lie, based on data from Ms Crouch’s smart watch that revealed inconsistencies in his account.
In addition, information from his mobile phone showed that he was moving around the house at the time when he claimed he had been tied up by the supposed robbers.
Anagnostopoulos was arrested and confessed to smothering Ms Crouch but said it was done in a “blurred state of mind”, a fit of rage that happened after a domestic fight caused when their daughter Lydia nearly fell off the couch.
The pilot eventually admitted he killed Ms Crouch because he did not receive an apology from her. Anagnostopoulos’ deceit began to unravel following examination of Ms Crouch’s smart watch.
“Thankfully, he didn’t think to remove her smart watch, which gave us valuable data. I call this divine retribution,” said Eugenia Stathoulopoulou, a prosecutor.
“All of Anagnostopoulos’s actions revolve around himself. He felt he was losing control as Caroline was maturing as a woman and a mother.”
During a six-week trial, the court heard the couple was seeing a therapist in the months before the murder. Ms Crouch, who was born in Liverpool but grew up on the Aegean island of Alonissos, told the therapist that she was “suffocating” in the relationship.
She said she found her husband – whom she met when she was a 15-yearold schoolgirl – narcissistic, controlling and manipulative.
The court heard how Anagnostopoulos had flown a helicopter over her school to try to “dazzle” her during their courtship.
At a hearing last week, Anagnostopoulos spent more than 10 hours trying to explain why he lost control on the night of the murder.
He tried to convince the court that the crime was not premeditated and so warranted a lesser sentence.
The couple’s daughter, Lydia, is being brought up by Ms Crouch’s British father, David, a former oil executive, and her Filipina mother Susan on the island of Alonissos.