Thursday, December 21, 2023 – A cannabis addict who killed his girlfriend and three members of her family in a savage attack that he claimed was a ‘sacrifice’ has finally been found guilty of murder.
Joshua Jacques, 29, had been drinking alcohol and smoking pot for 12 hours when he attacked Samantha Drummonds and her family in their own home in Bermondsey, south London, early on April 25 last year.
Police found the bodies of Ms. Drummonds, 27, her mother Tanysha Ofori-Akuffo, 45, grandmother Dolet Hill, 64, and Ms. Hill’s partner, Denton Burke, 58, after being alerted by a neighbour.
Police officers found Mr Burke’s body at the foot of the stairs and the three women ‘heaped together’ in the kitchen.
After the gruesome attack, Armed officers discovered Jacques naked and lying in the upstairs bathroom in a praying position, screaming ‘Allah, take me!’, ‘Kill me now’, ‘Get rid of me’, and ‘God please forgive me’.
Later, at Lewisham Hospital, Jacques said: ‘I ain’t even in the wrong, I did them for sacrifice’, and also warned: ‘I will do something stupid again.’
He had admitted their manslaughters but denied murder on the basis that he was mentally unwell at the time.
An Old Bailey jury deliberated for two hours to find Jacques, from Lewisham, south-east London, guilty of four counts of murder today.
Members of the victims’ family expressed relief at the unanimous verdicts with one saying ‘thank you, Jesus’.
The defendant looked down and shook his head in the dock as the jury foreman read out each of the four guilty verdicts.
Mr Justice Bryan adjourned sentencing until February 9 and remanded Jacques into custody.
Speaking outside court, members of the victims’ family said ‘justice has been served’ and Jacques deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars for the murders of a ‘happy, loving, caring’ family.
Previously, prosecutor Tom Little KC said: ‘The prosecution case is that this is a clear case of murder, or more accurately a clear case of quadruple murder.’
He argued Jacques’ ability to form a rational judgment and exercise self-control were not substantially impaired by any psychiatric condition, and his behaviour was brought about by ‘self-induced intoxication, taking drugs and drinking alcohol’.
He told jurors: ‘This, we say, led to a transient psychotic disorder not meeting the requirements for the defendant to make out a partial defence of diminished responsibility.’
Jurors were told Jacques had 11 previous convictions for 20 offences, including for cannabis, being in possession of a silver knuckle duster, and robbery.
He first had a mental health assessment in April 2016 after seeking hospital treatment for drinking water from a toilet.
He was arrested after he threatened to stab and shoot a security officer, and, while in police custody, threw food around his cell.
He said he had took 3g of skunk cannabis a day and refused to consider cutting down, saying he would carry on smoking marijuana ‘even if it killed’ him.
In 2018, he was detained under the Mental Health Act after he was seen praying in the middle of a busy road in Brixton, south London, and was in hospital from April 27 to around August 7 of that year.
Initially, on admission, the impression was of drug-induced mania with psychotic features, jurors were told.
In February 2020, he was jailed for 51 months for conspiring to deal heroin and crack cocaine, and possessing cannabis. He was released on November 11, 2021.
In probation reports from April last year, Jacques was described as chatty and engaged.
Three days before the killing, he called his probation officer to say that he had been offered a job at a radio station.
Two days later, Ms. Drummonds confided in a friend that she believed Jacques was having an ‘episode’ and had been ‘chatting all night and was fixated on topics’.
Mr Little told jurors no medical calls were made before the killings nor was Jacques taken to hospital.
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