A jealous husband is facing life behind bars for decapitating his wife of 30 years and flushing her severed head down the toilet.

Dempsey Nibbs, 69, became enraged after vivacious Meals On Wheels worker Judith Nibbs, 60, taunted him as their relationship fell apart by saying she had been seeing other men.

On the evening of April 10 2014, Nibbs attacked the mother of his two children at their flat in Hoxton, east London.

He knocked her out with an iron bar before cutting her head off, smashing it up with a mallet and disposing of the pieces in the lavatory.

Afterwards, the crane driver wrote a note to his 30-year-old son Kirk and called 999 to say police would find two bodies at the property.

A police officer broke down the door when he saw Mrs Nibbs' headless body through the letterbox and bravely grappled a shotgun and knife from Nibbs as he attempted to stab himself in the bathroom.

Afterwards, Nibbs, who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, said he killed his wife because he thought she was a "snake" but jurors heard he had shown no signs of mental illness.

Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC told an Old Bailey jury that the couple's relationship soured in the spring of 2014 as Nibbs suspected his wife of having affairs.

Their son said that since his mother no longer had to care for his younger sister, Nibbs felt she had changed and was not "the housewife" she used to be.

When Nibbs had asked him to go through his mother's computer, he found videos of her blowing kisses and saying "I love you" as well as sexually explicit pictures which he stored in a file entitled "Mum Slut".

Nibbs searched his wife's drawers and discovered bank transfer slips from their joint account to one in Morocco in the name of a close male friend and neighbour with whom she had gone on a road trip to Rabat in 2013.

An examination of her computer was to show that she went on to exchange sexually explicit messages on Skype with another man called Khalid in Morocco.

Mrs Nibbs had confided in her sister and a colleague at Meals On Wheels that her husband had threatened to kill her and grabbed her by the throat.

During a row on April 7, Mrs Nibbs, who was originally from Kirkham, near Preston, Lancashire, admitted seeing other men, taunting Nibbs by saying: "I have had sex eight times."

The next day, the mother of five predicted her own killing as she left work, with the words: "If I'm not in Friday, I might be dead."

Nibbs, of the Charles Estate in Hoxton, told jurors he had not meant to kill his partner when he went to confront her over money taken from their bank account which he took as "proof" of her infidelity.

He said he had only meant to "slap her around a bit" and it was only after she was dead that he cut her head off in anger because she "betrayed" him.

The jury rejected his claim of self-defence and found him guilty of murder.

Sentencing of Nibbs, who showed no emotion as the verdict was delivered, was adjourned to a date to be fixed.

Online Editors