The mother of a charity worker who was strangled by her cannabis-addicted boyfriend has hit out at the criminal justice system after a murder charge against him was dropped.
Kennedi Westcarr-Sabaroche, 25, was killed as she sat in her car by partner Gogoa Tape, 28, who then drove around with her lifeless body in the passenger seat.
Inner London crown court heard Tape - known as Lois - punched Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche repeatedly in the head, throttled her, and attempting to stab her with a kitchen knife in a horrifying eight-minute-long attack.
After ending her life, Tape moved Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche to the passenger seat and drove the car away to avoid neighbours intervening.
He stopped at the shops for cigarettes with his girlfriend’s dead body in the car, and used her phone to send a message to a friend, pretending she was still alive.
Tape failed to raise the alarm, it was more than six hours after the fatal attack that he told anyone about the death, and her body was found in the car in Hackney’s Whiston Road.
Tape - a daily cannabis smoker - was charged with murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility.
The Crown Prosecution Service initially pushed ahead with plans for a murder trial, but then agreed to drop the charge after receiving expert psychiatric evidence - in a move which stunned Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche’s devastated family.
“It is deeply painful to know that despite the overwhelming truth of what Tape did, the legal system has given room to this version of events, in a system meant to protect the innocent”, Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche’s mother Linda told the sentencing hearing.
“That too is a gaping wound.”
Members of Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche’s family delivered victim impact statements in court, but said their words have been substantially “redacted” before the hearing began.
In the parts she was allowed to read, Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche’s sister Danielle Westcarr-Jourdan said she has “received no support, no statutory help, and no financial aid” as she struggles with the traumatic aftermath of the death.
She said she has worked in mental health therapy for a decade, but her sister’s death has left her with difficulties expressing empathy to patients.
“It is deeply painful that the system I contributed to now feels like it is protecting the perpetrator, not the victim.”
She added: “The violent way her life was taken has left us with pain that cannot be measured.
“Kennedi deserved protecting in life and she deserves justice in death.”
Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche worked as a social media assistant at the Marie Curie trust, she had been an apprentice for the Prince’s Trust, and she has met the King on two occasions.
Her mother told the court: “She was my best friend, my soulmate, the life of our family, she was selfless, intelligent, strong, and full of life.”
Turning to Tape, she said Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche had supported him and “you repaid her with jealousy, control, and finally fatal rage.”
The court heard Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche’s daughter was just weeks away from her second birthday when her mother was killed, on April 5 last year.
Prosecutor Julia Faure Walker told the court: “He killed his 25-year-old girlfriend, Kennedi Westcarr-Sabaroche, on 5 April 2024.
“Her death was caused by manual compression to the neck. There were also blunt force injuries consistent with his punching her several times, and incised wounds to her hands consistent with defending herself from a knife attack.
“The defendant had brought a kitchen knife with him.
“The killing took place from around 11.25pm, when he lunged towards her for eight minutes.
“After the killing, he moved her from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat and buckled the seatbelt, he drove away so that the neighbours would not see, he continued to drive around the local area with her slumped next to him.
“He parked the car and bought cigarettes from a shop, and sent a message from the deceased’s phone to her friend’s phone pretending to be her, alluding to infidelity which the defendant had been accusing her of.
“Despite having access to her phone and his phone, he did not summon help. About 6-and-a-half hours after the killing, during which time phone calls from deceased’s mother had been ignored, he confessed to his brother that he had killed her.”
She told the court that a guilty plea to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility had been accepted, rather than pursuing a murder trial, after experts found Tape was suffering from paranoid and “persecutory delusions arising from schizophrenia” at the time of the killing.
“They consider that his ability to form a rational judgement and exercise self-control were substantially impaired, but not his ability to understand the nature of his conduct”, she added.
The court heard Tape and Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche had known each other since they were teenagers in college, they split up in 2019 when he cheated on her, but they later reconciled.
During the Covid lockdown, Tape moved in with her family, and together they had a daughter in 2022.
Tape smoked cannabis daily since 2014, and he lied about stopping the drug use in 2023 when it was clear his mental health was plunging.
Signs of issues began to emerge including Tape talking about the “devil” and making unfounded allegations about Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche’s infidelity.
The court also heard that Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche sent messages suggesting she was scared of Tape’s erratic behaviour, fearing it could lead to violence.
On the night of the attack, Tape armed himself with a knife and travelled to Bruce Grove station where Ms Westcarr-Sabaroche picked him up in her mother’s Vauxhall Mokka.
She drove him up to Bowes Park and back, then to Talavera Place in the Whiston Estate in Hackney where the killing took place. This was near to Tape’s home which bordered the Regent’s Canal.
Experts are due to give evidence to the court about Tape’s mental state in the lead up to the killing.
Ms Faure Walker said witnesses have said they noticed Tape was “paranoid” in March 2024, he was asking people “if she was cheating on him”, and he even went to another man’s door to find out if his girlfriend was with him.
The sentencing hearing did not conclude on Friday, and has been adjourned until September 1.
