Caroline Crouch’s father says he ‘would take it as an honour’ to execute her killer

The father of the slain Caroline Crouch said he would be “honoured” to execute her killer if the death penalty still existed in Greece.

David Crouch, 79, spoke out ahead of Babis Anagnostopoulos’ appeal against his 27-year prison sentence for the murder of Caroline, 19, at their Greek home in May 2021.

He will claim that he killed her because he was “afraid she might hurt their then nine-month-old daughter Lydia” and that his prison sentence should be reduced due to extenuating circumstances.

Anagnostopoulos, 35, was convicted last year after she strangled Caroline at the couple’s home in an upscale Athens suburb. He then lied to police, saying she was killed “by burglars” before his fabric of lies fell apart.

According to Anagnostopoulos’ legal team, his blatant appeal will claim that he did not mean to kill Caroline and that he responded during an argument because he was afraid she might hurt Lydia.

Led by lawyer Alexandros Papaioannidis – who fired Anagnostopoulos last year but has now rehired – they will argue that he deserves a more lenient sentence.

Obviously, they’ll say he’s been a “model inmate and helped other inmates” during his time in Korydallos Prison.

But in a furious attack, Mr Crouch described him as an “asshole” and said: “If the death penalty were still available here (in Greece) I would consider it an honor to be allowed to pull the lever to send him to the oblivion.

“I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anything in my life. May he rot in hell.’

Speaking before the appeal. Mr Papaioannidis told MailOnline: ‘Not a day goes by without my client regretting what happened, but what he wants and what we want for him is justice. He does not deny what happened, but we ask for a reduced sentence.

“Every day he’s in jail, he thinks about what happened and how much he hates himself, his only thoughts are for his daughter.

“All he wants is a fair trial and consideration of the extenuating circumstances of what happened at the time of Caroline’s death.

“He is not a narcissist and he accepts the decisions of the court, since his conviction he has been a model prisoner in prison and helps with other inmates and has been very well behaved and we will explain all this in court.”

He also responded to suggestions from Caroline’s father that Anagnostopoulos, a helicopter pilot, killed Caroline because she found out he was a drug runner.

Mr Papaioannidis said: ‘No evidence for this allegation has come forward at the trial and no evidence has been found in the investigation and he has never been prosecuted for similar crimes. He has a flawless 11-year career as a helicopter pilot. We respect Caroline’s father’s grief, but categorically deny this claim.’

But Mr. Crouch has painted a very different picture of his late daughter’s husband, saying that he and his wife Susana have learned since her death that Anagnostopoulos controlled her finances and movements.

“To give you an idea of ​​what my daughter’s killer is like, I want to tell you what Susana and I learned about the way he treated Caroline,” Mr. Crouch said.

‘When Caroline first left home to attend the University of Piraeus, Susana and I each gave her a monthly stipend of €750 for food, rent, etc. Within a year she was married and stopped taking classes and lived with her husband.

‘Because I had few other commitments, I continued to give her a monthly allowance of $750 and Susana reduced her contribution from $750 to $250 per month.

‘We did this because we thought it would be nice if Caroline could have some degree of independence from her husband and not have to keep asking him for money to buy clothes and other personal items.

“We found out after her death that the money Susana and I had deposited into Caroline’s bank account every month had been appropriated by her husband and that every time she needed money to buy coffee or buy food for her pets, she should ask her husband for this money,’ said her father.

“All household errands were controlled by him, they always shopped together, and she was never allowed to shop alone.

Occasionally she would be allowed to meet a friend for coffee, but he arranged for her to travel to the rendezvous in a taxi driven by his friend and prepaid by him. When it was time to go home, she had to call him so he could pick her up,’ Mr Crouch said.

“It’s a mystery to me how she tolerated this arrangement. Caroline had always been a stubborn girl with fixed ideas and would never let herself be bullied.’

Conniving Anagnostopoulos viciously strangled Caroline, then covered up her death for six weeks – insisting she was killed by burglars who even strangled their dog Roxy.

But dogged detective work exposed his lies after details on Caroline’s smartwatch were found to be inconsistent with what her scheming husband told Greek police and he was arrested after flying to the island of Alonnisos for his wife’s funeral.

Crouch added: ‘After my daughter’s death, Susana’s husband and Caroline accompanied her body back to Alonnisos for burial and I had never seen a man so broken with grief.

“Although I was completely devastated by my daughter’s death, I realized that his grief was even greater than mine, something I never thought possible.

“We held hands in my house, tears streaming down both our cheeks, utterly inconsolable. After the funeral he returned to Athens with his parents and Lydia.’

But Liverpool-born Mr Crouch, a retired engineer, soon grew suspicious of his son-in-law.

He told MailOnline: ‘In the intervening period between Caroline’s funeral and memorial service, some disturbing thoughts would occasionally cross my mind.

“It struck me that there was something strange about the whole affair, little things that made no sense. Why would the robbers kill my daughter before leaving after taking all the valuables and money in the house?

“How did they know about the internal camera system and how were they enabled enough to think about removing the memory card from the system.

“Then I saw Caroline’s husband on the morning of Caroline’s memorial service. He was still depressed, a picture of misery, but he hugged me and tears began to stream down his cheeks again, his voice choked with emotion.

“He told me he brought me a present and unwrapped a huge framed photo of him and Caroline taken at their wedding in Portugal.

“I was very touched by this kind gift that he knew was my favorite picture. I then saw that he was wearing the expensive Rolex watch he was so proud of.

‘He then sold this watch to a dealer for around 7,500 euros. I knew then that the robbery had been committed by complete incompetents or that there was something very wrong with his story.

The picture became much clearer an hour later when two large police officers led him away from the cemetery to a waiting helicopter, ostensibly to identify a suspect arrested in Athens.

“You didn’t have to be an expert in body language to realize that the police officers who led him away didn’t quietly take him to his VIP transport, but took away the man they suspected of murdering his wife.”

It emerged earlier this year that Lydia had moved to the Philippines – where Mr Crouch’s wife is from – and he told MailOnline that she was now living with Caroline’s half-sister Donna.

He said, “Lydia is happily settled there. All her cousins, like all the Philippians, have straight black hair – so that she stands out from the crowd and gets a lot of attention – which she enjoys.’