Roderick Deakin-White attacked Parsons with a metal bar in the shower after she told him she planned to leave their relationship

This article is more than 10 months old

This article is more than 10 months old

A man who battered his Australian fiancee to death in London after she said she was leaving him has been found guilty of murder.

Roderick Deakin-White, 38, repeatedly hit Amy Parsons, 35, over the head with a metal bar while she was showering in the flat they shared in Whitechapel, east London.

She suffered “horrific injuries” to her head, face and brain during the attack on 25 April before he left her bleeding to death on the floor.

Deakin-White denied murder but was found guilty by a jury on Tuesday. He faces a life sentence.

Parsons, from Melbourne, had lived in London for some years and worked as a personal assistant for a city company. The court heard she had become increasingly dissatisfied with the relationship, telling friends one bone of contention was Deakin-White’s cross-dressing.

“She was unhappy about this and this was something he had often wanted to do when they were intimate,” the prosecutor, Gareth Patterson QC, said.

He told jurors Deakin-White became angry and jealous after Parsons began a relationship with a colleague, James Saunders, a few weeks before the killing.

He said Deakin-White launched the attack after she told him she was leaving him.

Patterson said: “On Thursday 25 April this year, he attacked his partner and fiancee, a woman called Amy Parsons.

“Unwilling to accept that she was going to leave him, he used a metal bar to hit her repeatedly around the head while she was showering in the Docklands flat which they shared.

“By his blows with the bar he caused her horrific injuries and fractures to the head and face and brain.”

She was left bleeding on the shower floor, and Deakin-White fled the flat before confessing to a friend, who persuaded him to hand himself in.

Emergency services broke into the flat and found her naked body covered in blood slumped on the shower floor.

A postmortem found she suffered major fractures to her head and face and died of a traumatic brain injury.

In interviews with police, Deakin-White admitted attacking her with a metal bar but denied murder, claiming it was an “accident”.

Det Insp Darren Jones, of Scotland Yard, said: “Amy Parsons paid the ultimate price because of Deakin-White’s controlling, selfish and violent nature.

“He relied on Amy’s financial support and I believe he could not stand the fact that she was moving on and refused to be taken advantage of any more. Amy had become aware of what kind of person he was and was beginning to take steps to leave Deakin-White.

“These steps included a new relationship, free from Deakin-White’s coercive and abusive behaviour. Because of this Deakin-White launched a vicious and brutal attack on Amy, without warning and in her own home, where she should have been safe and secure.”

Deakin-White is due to be sentenced on 26 November.