Husband found guilty of decapitating wife in act of ‘grotesque savagery’

A husband who decapitated his wife of 30 years and flushed her severed head down the toilet in an act of “grotesque savagery” has been jailed for life.

Dempsey Nibbs (69) became enraged after Meals On Wheels worker Judith Nibbs (60) told him she had been seeing other men.

The cancer sufferer claimed he had acted in self defence, but a jury found Nibbs guilty of murder following an Old Bailey trial.

His lawyer Ian Henderson QC told the court that his client acknowledged that his ill health meant he would die in jail.

The Recorder of London Nicholas Hilliard QC jailed Nibbs for life with a minimum of 21 years.

He told him: “I’m sure you don’t regret your wife’s death save for its effect on your own comfort and well-being.”

On the evening of April 10th 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 before taking 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 had 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.

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 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 7th, Mrs Nibbs, who was originally from Kirkham, near Preston, Lancashire, admitted to her husband that she had been seeing other men.

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 last week.

The Recorder of London, Nicholas Hilliard QC, will set the minimum term of his life sentence at the Old Bailey later.

PA