Man admits stabbing to death four family members in London
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Version 0 of 1. Joshua Jacques pleads guilty to manslaughter of Dolet Hill, Denton Burke, Tanysha Ofori-Akuffo and Samantha Drummonds A man has admitted stabbing four members of the same family to death but has denied it was murder. Joshua Jacques pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Dolet Hill, 64; her husband, Denton Burke, 58; their daughter Tanysha Ofori-Akuffo, 45; and granddaughter Samantha Drummonds, 27. Jacques, 28, boyfriend to Samantha, attacked three generations of Hill’s family at her terraced home in Bermondsey, south London, on Monday 25 April. Police had been called to a disturbance at the property in the early hours of the morning and forced entry. They found Burke’s body at the foot of the stairs and the bodies of the three women in the kitchen. They all had numerous stab wounds and were pronounced dead at the scene. Officers discovered Jacques hiding in the upstairs bathroom. During the first court hearing in May, prosecutor Oliver Glasgow QC told how “the defendant was found naked in the bathroom upstairs having made contact with his mother”. Jacques, from Lewisham, south-east London, was Tasered during his arrest and taken into custody at Brixton police station, where he was charged with four counts of murder. On Friday, Jacques appeared for a plea hearing at the Old Bailey before Judge Richard Marks KC. He denied four charges of murder but admitted manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. The prosecution indicated that the pleas to the lesser offence would not be accepted by the crown and the case would go to trial. Following the deaths, a Gofundme page, set up to help pay for funeral costs, said the extended family had been left “truly heartbroken”. Hill had been married to Burke, a council worker, for 15 years. She had worked in the NHS for more than 20 years as a housekeeper at Guy’s hospital and had recently had surgery for cancer. Ofori-Akuffo was a nurse who worked with her mother to raise money for charity, and was described as “a doting wife, caring mother and a great friend”. Her daughter, Samantha, was “an upbeat, fun-loving, bubbly young lady who adored her grandmother Dolet”, the family said. At his first court hearing in May, Jacques gave a salute to his aunt in the public gallery and banged his chest twice as he was led away to the cells. |