Couple who tortured and killed French nanny then had sex near her dead body found guilty of murder

'No god will forgive you,' says victim's mother

A delusional couple who had sex close to the body of their French au pair whom they had tortured, killed and burned have been found guilty of murder.

Sabrina Kouider, 35, and Ouissem Medouni, 40, repeatedly beat, tormented and abused their nanny, Sophie Lionnet, in the weeks leading up to her death.

Kouider told the court that Medouni had tortured Miss Lionnet in the bath, then demanded they have sex as she lay dead nearby.

"He was putting her head under the water and sometimes he would put water on the towel in her mouth. It was getting really mad," she said.

Kouider collapsed in tears and Medouni hung his head as the jury foreman returned the verdicts at the Old Bailey following a two-month trial and almost 30 hours of jury deliberations.

Miss Lionnet's mother, Catherine Devallonne, also wept as the verdicts were delivered.

In her final days, the 21-year-old au pair was hit with an electrical cable and beaten so badly she had five broken ribs and a cracked breast bone at their home near Wimbledon, southwest London.

During the trial the jury heard recorded extracts of occasions when Kouider had interrogated Ms Lionnet, who could be heard sobbing in the background after a loud slapping sound.

The couple had targeted the “shy and reserved” young woman in a bizarre obsession with Kouider’s former boyfriend, Mark Walton, a former member of boy band Boyzone. They claimed Ms Lionnet was colluding in a black-magic plot with him

Guilty: Ouissem Medouni and Sabrina Kouider (Police/Handout via Reuters) (Reuters)

The mother of two created a fantasy world, casting Mr Walton as an evil villain who seduced Miss Lionnet with sex and promises of Hollywood stardom.

In a statement read in court by a family liaison officer, Mrs Devallonne said no god would ever forgive them.

"These self-obsessed individuals who murdered Sophie did not believe Sophie had a value,” she said. "Those monsters repeatedly beat Sophie. They starved, tortured and broke her until she could no longer fight.

"They took away her dignity and finally her life painfully ebbed away until Sophie struggled to take her final terrified breath in the bath.”

Miss Lionnet’s father, Patrick Lionnet, said: "Sabrina and Ouissem have not only stolen the life of my daughter so brutally and without remorse, they have also stolen mine. My sleep, my happiness, my peace of mind and my future."

He said what the couple did to his shy and reserved daughter was unforgivable and "beyond comprehension".

The court heard that fashion designer Kouider was fixated with Mr Walton. After splitting up after two years, Kouider reported him to police more than 30 times and received a caution for branding him a paedophile on a fake Facebook profile.

Giving evidence, Los Angeles-based Mr Walton said she would "flip" and go "crazy" for no reason.

Another ex-boyfriend, Anthony Francois, described her as a "lunatic, fickle and unstable".

Medouni became an ardent believer in Kouider's twisted reality and they interrogated Miss Lionnet for hours to get to "the truth".

Miss Lionnet was slapped, likened to a Nazi collaborator and called "worse than a murderer" by her tormentors.

Kouider, who had bragged about "friends in high places" including links with Donald Trump, threatened to have her locked up and even marched her to a police station.

Before her death last September, the couple starved and tortured her by dunking her head into water until she “confessed”.

Having killed her in the bath, they then threw her body on a bonfire in the garden, as they barbecued chicken nearby.

When firefighters were alerted by neighbours to pungent-smelling smoke, Medouni tried to pass off the charred remains as a sheep.

And Kouider claimed to police that Miss Lionnet had run off with Mr Walton in an attempt to frame him for her disappearance.

The pair later admitted disposing of her body.

The jury found both of them guilty of murder following a two-month trial that was described as stranger than fiction.

Miss Lionnet's parents leaving court (PA)

In a filmed "confession", the emaciated and broken young woman was forced to say she had drugged Medouni so that Mr Walton could sexually assault him. Within hours, she was dead.

Medouni offered to admit manslaughter but later retracted his confession, saying he made it to protect his wife, who has been diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder.

Prosecutor Richard Horwell QC told jurors that the couple’s "unhealthy, myopic, all-consuming and groundless" obsession with Mr Walton had deprived them of reason.

Investigating officer Detective Inspector Domenica Catino, of Scotland Yard, said: "I cannot imagine what thoughts were going through Sophie's mind whilst being held a prisoner in those 12 days leading up to her death, but from the harrowing images obtained, it showed a scared, broken and emaciated young girl who probably knew she was shortly facing death.

"I believe that we are Sophie's voice telling of the torment, abuse and torture she suffered and today she has finally been heard."

She said it had been an "extremely harrowing and tragic case" but that the full extent of the "horrors" Miss Lionnet endured would never be known.

Mrs Devallonne, who had sat through the Old Bailey trial, added: "We have now been tortured ourselves, forced to listen to Sophie's last moments, her sobs and her crying.

"The final images and voice recording will taunt me for the rest of my life.

"You will not be forgiven for the lies you have told this court, for the prolonged pain and hurt you have both inflicted our little girl. You are equally as evil as one another."

She told the defendants that the curtains had now closed for them and no one was interested in their "crocodile tears".

She added: "My heart is broken, shattered into a million pieces."

Mrs Devallonne told how her "placid, shy, naive" daughter treasured her copy of The Diary of Anne Frank and had visited Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz on a school trip.

Mr Lionnet added: "The laughs, the hugs, the family celebrations, these special moments, they have all been tragically and brutally cut short by the people that had responsibility for Sophie's care and wellbeing whilst she was employed by them."

He described his daughter as "kind, quiet and reserved" and said he had encouraged her to go to London and fulfil her "life goal".

He said: "Sophie was so nurturing; she liked children and animals. She couldn't stand seeing others suffering and it breaks my heart to know that she was abused to the end of her life.”

The British Au Pair Agencies Association said would-be au pairs should go through a reputable agency that interviews and vets host families and provides au pairs with support.

"We cannot guarantee that this would have prevented what happened to Sophie. That was a result of who the killers were, not because of who Sophie was or the fact that she was an au pair.

"But taking such steps goes a long way to making the normally safe experience of being an au pair a great deal more secure," the association said.

Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC is expected to sentence the couple on 26 June.