Fiance of slain Melbourne woman Amy Parsons hid his phone from police
A London court has heard that the fiance of Amy Parsons refused a simple request from police after her death, as it was revealed he was not on medication when he killed the Melbourne woman.
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Australian woman Amy Parsons had told her fiance Roderick Deakin-White to move out of their London flat in the weeks before her brutal murder, as a court heard he hid his mobile phone after he killed her.
Ms Parsons was trying to move on from Deakin-White, 38, when he attacked her with an iron bar while she was in the shower.
Snaresbrook Crown Court in London heard extensive extracts of Deakin-White’s police interview where he denied he was a murderer, despite saying he had killed Parsons when he first turned himself into Tottenham Hale Police station.
He said in his police interview it was an “accident” but he could not explain why he did not call an ambulance at the time, or when he confessed to the killing to a man on a houseboat the next day.
“She just kept saying she needed some space,” Deakin-White said in his interview that was read out in court.
The couple had been arguing about breaking up, and Parsons had told Deakin-White, who was unemployed, to stay with his mother.
“It was just the same conversation we kept having.”
Deakin-White, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and dark tie, listened to the evidence from the dock, including the recording of the police evidence which was played on a television screen that he could see.
He leafed through some notes during part of the hearing, and he had his curly dark but greying hair slicked back and a manicured beard.
The jury in Parsons’ murder trial was shown the 64cm Everlast chin up bar that was used to kill her.
The item was passed around, along with its end connection piece that was found in the east London flat the Australian woman shared with her accused murderer Deakin-White.
A police report claimed that there was no evidence that it was fixed to a cupboard door frame where Deakin-White claimed it was kept.
He had told police that he hit Parsons, 35, an executive assistant, several times with the bar while she was in the shower.
Deakin-White, 38, said he had hit her on “the jaw” while she was in the shower.
“She was side on,” he said in a police interview read out in a London court. “I didn’t hit her after she slipped, it’s all very hard to talk about this. I hit her several times (before she slipped).”
Deakin-White then noticed that she was breathing heavily but instead of calling an ambulance for help, he left her to die.
Deakin-White, who had worked as a graphic designer at the Royal Opera House in London, had grown financially and emotionally dependent on Parsons, who was originally from Melbourne.
He found out two weeks before her murder on April 25 that she was “seeing other people”.
His police interview was remarkably different to his statements which were recorded on police body cameras when he handed himself in the day after the murder.
Deakin-White had admitted manslaughter but denied murder, despite telling police he was a “f***ing murderer.”
He told police in his interview that he had dumped his mobile phone and refused to give them the passcode.
“If you recover the phone I’ll give you the passcode,” he told police.
It was also revealed in court that Deakin-White was not on medication when he killed her, despite claiming he was bipolar.
The court heard that a nurse who spoke to Deakin-White shortly after he handed himself in over Parson’s murder said that he appeared coherent.
Prosecutor Ben Lloyd read out a statement from the nurse during the hearing.
Deakin-White had no previous contact with mental health services in his local area, according to checks done by the nurse.
He had said that he had been prescribed Prozac five years before the April murder but had stopped taking it four years ago.
“He said he was bipolar but had never taken medication,” Mr Lloyd said.
Deakin-White also claimed he had been a social drinker and denied he had taken illicit drugs.
The comments come as he tries to deny Parsons murder but admits to her manslaughter.
Additional police body camera footage was played to the court.
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He had told police that he had dumped his clothes near the River Thames at Wapping, East London.
“I swam out and then swam back, I was thinking about killing myself, I couldn’t do it,” he told police after he handed himself in.
He added he took his clothes off because they were “drenched.”
Another police officer, Nicholas Davis, took notes while he was guarding Deakin-White.
“He clearly said, ‘I’ve done it. How could I do it to that level?’” according to notes from Officer Davis.
He added that he had “broken two families up” and that he was worried he would never see his mother, who had cancer, again.
The latest developments come a day after the court heard that police body camera footage revealed Deakin-White told police he was a “f***ing murderer” who “deserved whatever” he gets.
“It is not all right. I am a f***ing murderer. I have done a horrible thing,” Deakin-White said in body cam footage played in court.
“I left the flat. Oh my God, I am sorry, I am sorry. I tried to kill myself but I did not have it in me.”
Police at Tottenham Hale Station in north London then asked for more detail.
“She went to get a shower and then I was talking to her in the shower and then I grabbed a thing that was by the door – the thing that you do the lift ups with,” Deakin-White said.
“Then for a tenth of a second, I thought, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ And then I just lost control.
“I have left it too late. I am sorry. I thought I had imagined it. It felt like a dream, it did not feel real. I just lost control. I deserve whatever I get.”
Parsons’ final scream lasted up to three minutes, neighbours confirmed.
Neighbour Asad Akhtar, a student, heard one long scream on the night Parsons was killed, the court heard.
“I heard screaming, a female scream coming from outside and then I heard banging. It was almost impossible to differentiate,” he told the court.
“It was just one loud, long scream for roughly two to three minutes.”
He left his flat and confirmed the noise was coming from flat 17 where Parsons and Deakin-White had lived in East London.
“It was as if somebody was very terrified,” Mr Akhtar said.
“Slowly it became less intense and just sort of died out, but I could still hear the banging going on for one minute or one-and-a-half minutes.”
Parsons had been with Deakin-White for eight years but she had started a new relationship with workmate James Saunders, and the pair had been seen together smiling and kissing in Bluebell Wood, north London shortly before her death.
Later, she went to a pub with Deakin-White and his brother where she sang into a microphone.
Cameron Rastall, a friend of Parsons, told the court of her tearful and “mixed emotions” when she confided in him about her affair that night.
“We were having a good time and then she would get emotional. She told me that she had been seeing someone else,” he said.
“She said she was finding it tough and she was in two minds. There were a lot of mixed emotions.”
Parsons told Mr Rastall that Deakin-White had been distant.
“She said that Rod was not giving her the attention that she needed, and the new person she had found was giving her the attention and that was what she liked,” he said.
The court had previously heard that Deakin-White, who had a fetish for cross dressing, killed Parsons with an iron bar while she was in the shower.
He confessed his crime to a houseboat owner on a London canal, who found him without shoes and wearing a Christmas themed jumper, the day after the alleged murder.
Radu Racarean, the houseboat owner, said he thought at first that Deakin-White was “homeless”.
In his statement, read to the court, Mr Racarean said: “He asked for a cigarette and I gave him one. He mentioned he had been mugged. He said, ‘They took my phone.’
“He also mentioned that somebody had let him stay on another boat recently and had given him a jumper. I got him some food.
“He said he had tried to kill himself twice in just two days. He told me he had a rope on him.”
They walked to a cafe where Mr Racarean said he encouraged Deakin-White to hand himself into police.
“He then said something like, ‘I think I killed her. I hit her with something.’ He seemed really affected.
“She said she was leaving him and he begged her not to go to the other man.
“He said there was a moment when he held back while he was hitting her, but then he carried on.”
Mr Racarean and the accused then walked 25 minutes to Tottenham Hale Police Station where Deakin-White called his father and told him that his “son is a murderer”.
The trial continues.
stephen.drill@news.co.uk
Originally published as Fiance of slain Melbourne woman Amy Parsons hid his phone from police