BOUKHARI: BATTERED GIRLFRIEND JAILED FOR HAMMER KILLING

A hammer-wielding woman who battered her lover to death after she was beaten by him on ‘hundreds of occasions’ was jailed for seven years today (mon).

Nadia Boukhari, 43, struck lover Paul Duffy repeatedly over the head while 48-year-old John Green stabbed him in the back.

Mr Duffy, 40, a former boxer, had thumped his girlfriend in the face moments earlier after she refused to give him a cigarette, the Old Bailey heard.

Ms Boukhari, who had been two months pregnant with the couple’s child, sufferered a miscarriage following the bust-up, while medics found 21 marks and injuries on her body.

Green was found guilty of murder following after just three hours of deliberation, while Boukhari was cleared of murder, but convicted of a lesser charge of manslaughter following the three-week trial.

Jailing Green for life with a minimum tariff of 14 years and Boukhari for seven years, Judge Brian Barker QC told the pair they had killed following an ‘explosion of violent temper’.

‘The behaviour in that room was blind and selfish, and the catastrophic results all too familiar in these courts,’ he said.

‘In my view, your actions were a compelte over-reaction to Mr Duffy’s aggressive and drunken behaviour.

‘A life has been thrown away.’

Turning to Boukhari, he added: ‘You were the victim of an attack in the house and there was an element of both provocation and self-defence.

‘But your reactive acts were totally disproportionate.’

The court heard Mr Duffy and Boukhari had been living with green, an unemployed caretaker, in Craven Park Road, Stoke Newington, north London, shortly before the killing took place.

Green and Boukhari set upon Mr Duffy in the sitting room of mutual friend Daniel McNamara’s house in nearby Maple Close shortly before 12.30pm on Janury 5 this year.

Green stabbed the victim with a knife before Boukhari struck him repeatedly on the back of the head with a hammer, fracturing his skull.

‘Shortly before Mr Duffy was assaulted by these two defendants he had gone to the address to confront Green and assaulted Nadia Boukhari,’ said Jonathan Rees QC, prosecuting.

‘It appears one possibility is that he suspected there was something going on between them.’

Green admitted he had been at Mr McNamara’s house that day, but claimed he had left to run some errands by the time the killing took place.

He discovered a heavily-injured Mr Duffy on returning to check the whereabouts of his bus pass with Boukhari, he told jurors.

Morroccan-born Boukhari, who emigrated to the UK in 2008, initially claimed Green was the knifeman and denied using the hammer, but then claimed she had acted in self-defence.

She was found guilty of manslaughter after hearing about the ‘turbulent relationship’ she had with Mr Duffy, who had been violent towards her on numerous occasions.

Ann Cotcher QC, defending, said Boukhari had been assaulted repeatedly throughout her stormy two-year relationship with Mr Duffy, and had been punched twice in the face earlier on the day of the killing.

‘Nadia Boukhari told the court she was generally assaulted three or four times a week,’ she said.

‘If she’s even nearly right, that runs into tens, if not hundreds, of occasions.

She added: ‘For simply being refused a cigarette, he launched an attack on Ms Boukhari, the seriousness of which she had never experienced before.

‘The attack continued for some time and almost immediately that it finished, she poicked up a hammer.

‘It was the extreme violence that made her use it.

‘This was a strong man, said to be a boxer or bare-knuckle fighter, fighting a woman.

‘The cumulative effect of being abused time after time after time may well have had some bearing on how she behaved on that occasion.’

Green and Boukhari, both of Craven Park Road, Stoke Newington, north London, denied murder.
ENDS