A man decapitated his partner of 30 years before trying to flush her head down the toilet because he thought she was a ‘snake’, a court has heard. Dempsey Nibbs, 69, denies murdering the mother of his two children, Judith, in a brutal attack at their home in Hoxton in April 2014.
A trial at the Old Bailey heard Nibbs had shown no signs of mental illness before the incident in April 2014. The court heard how Judith, 60, had told colleagues at Meals on Wheels that her estranged partner had threatened to kill her previously and grabbed her by the throat.
On the day before she was attacked the mum-of-five even joked ‘if I’m not in Friday, I might be dead’.
The gruesome nature of her death was relayed to the court by Prosecutor Crispin Aylett who told the jury to ‘brace themselves’ for what he was about to say.
On the night of April 10, he said the crane driver attacked his alleged victim knocking her out.
He then told jurors: ‘What might otherwise have been family tragedy now becomes terrible. You will, I am afraid, have to brace yourselves.
‘Having attacked his wife, the defendant then took up a kitchen knife and cut off her head.
‘Nor does the horror end there: having decapitated his wife, the defendant began to break her head into pieces with a mallet and a metal bar.
‘He then flushed the pieces down the lavatory.’
He added: ‘Quite why the defendant decapitated Judith and then disposed of her head is not entirely clear but it may well be that he did it out of pure hatred at the sight of his wife’s face.’
The court heard Nibbs was apprehended after he rang police to tell them they would find ‘a couple of dead bodies’. He also wrote a suicide note to his son Kirk.
He was found by officers with a shotgun and kitchen knife which he used to stab himself in the neck and stomach.
Nibbs admits killing his partner but denies murder claiming he was ‘defending himself’.
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