London couple killed boy ‘to give kids a good Christmas’

A couple who murdered a teenager and hid the body in their attic for eight months targeted him in order to give their three children a “good Christmas”, a court has heard.

Stacey Docharty, 28, and 37-year old Gary Hopkins are accusing of stabbing and bludgeoning 17-year-old Abdi Ali with a kitchen knife and claw hammer at their flat in Enfield, north London, on 21 December 2017.

Ali’s family reported him missing ten days later, but his fate was not revealed until the end of August, after Hopkins allegedly complained to visitors at their flat about a drug dealer who had refused to sell to him. A jury at the Old Bailey was told that Hopkins talked about wanting rob the dealer and kill him as he had done Ali, the Daily Mirror reports.

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His comments prompted Docharty to confess to one of the visitors that she and Hopkins had killed the teen and hidden his body, prosecutors said. Hopkins is then alleged to have shown one of them the body.

Opening for the prosecution, Gareth Patterson QC said: “[Doherty] revealed that the motive had been financial, stating that she had wanted to give her children a good Christmas.”

The court heard that “the couple stole up to £400 in cash and ‘a large amount of heroin’ from the youngster”, who was asleep on the sofa when he was bludgeoned to death, the Daily Mail reports.

Police discovered his remains wrapped in a duvet, along with the knife and claw hammer allegedly used in the attack, after getting a tip-off from one of the visitors to whom the couple are said to have confessed.

Ali’s body was severely decomposed and “infested with insects”, but an autopsy revealed that the boy had been “hit over the head with a hammer at least three times and stabbed repeatedly” in what prosecutors described as a “savage attack”, The Independent reports.

Hopkins later told police that he regularly allowed the teen to sell drugs from their home.

The couple are charged with murder, perverting the course of justice and preventing the lawful burial of a dead body. Docharty had pleaded not guilty to all charges, while Hopkins denies murder but admits the two other charges.

The trial continues.