[ad_1]
Shakira Spencer, 35, is said to have fallen under the influence of former neighbour Ashana Studholme, 38, her lover Shaun Pendlebury, 26, and their friend Lisa Richardson, 44.
The Old Bailey was told that Ms Spencer was “treated like a slave” and fed only ketchup from sachets.
She went from being a “beautiful, happy, healthy” size 16 to a “gaunt and skeletal” size six shortly before her death, jurors were told.
Her badly decomposed body was found last September after neighbours saw maggots coming from her flat in Ealing.
Studholme, from Harrow, appeared in court alongside Pendlebury and Richardson, both from Ealing. All three are accused of murder and preventing Ms Spencer’s lawful burial
Opening their trial on Monday, prosecutor Allison Hunter KC said: “For whatever was their unfathomable, cruel, sadistic motive, these three defendants tormented, tortured, starved, burned and eventually battered Shakira Spencer to death.”
After meeting the defendants, Ms Spencer was allegedly subdued and dominated mainly by Studholme and Richardson to the point where she was under all of their “complete control”.
Over a period of months, she was allegedly isolated from everyone she had previously known, prostituted and robbed of her self respect and finances.
She would be woken up in the early hours to clean the defendants’ houses and sent on errands to the shops, it was claimed.
Ms Hunter said: “In early 2021 Shakira Spencer had been a healthy – even voluptuous – size 16 weighing some 74kgs (11st 9lb).
“By July 2022 Shakira Spencer was just skin and bone. Gaunt and skeletal, bruised from head to foot, with hollowed black eyes. She was barely a scrawny size six in images taken by the defendants just before she died.”
The abuse reached a “frenzied climax” on around September 11 and 12 last year when Ms Spencer was beaten “to the brink of death” at Studholme’s home, the…
[ad_2]
