A ‘self-pitying’ husband stabbed his 12-year-old daughter to death and suffocated his wife after she began a relationship with a colleague at the Homebase store where she worked, a court has heard.
Police found the bodies of Jillu Nash, 43, and 12-year-old Louise at their home in Great Waldingfield, Suffolk, while 47-year-old Peter Nash was found covered in blood and holding a knife.
Nash, who moved with his family from Leicester to the Sudbury area of Suffolk in 2018, stabbed himself multiple times in the chest and attempted to gas himself to death, prosecutor David Josse KC said.
He said the defendant killed his family late on September 7 or early September 8 last year.
In a video played to jurors at Ipswich Crown Court, a Taser officer is heard yelling at Nash, “There’s a red dot on you, drop the knife.” Nash denies two murders.
Peter Nash (left) is charged with the murder of his wife Jillu Nash (right) and daughter Louise Nash
The court heard that Ms Nash’s Homebase colleague, Mark Leamey, was concerned when she responded to his messages late on September 7, nor on the morning of September 8.
He visited a Tesco store where Mrs Nash also worked part-time, and then Louise’s school, before visiting her family’s home. The police were called when there was no answer at the door.
The prosecution said that Mr and Mrs Nash got married in 2009 and that Ms Nash was an Indian national at the time. She applied for leave to remain in the UK as the husband of a British subject in 2010, and their daughter was born soon after.
Mr Josse said Ms Nash’s life was ‘rather thriving’ in Suffolk. But he said Nash – who has chosen to represent himself in his trial rather than accept free legal representation from a lawyer – was fired from Philips Electronics in the summer of 2020, and that the couple had “a difficult and unhappy marriage ‘.
The prosecutor said Ms Nash died of neck compression and Louise died of a single stab wound to the abdomen, adding that after the alleged double murder, police looked at Ms Nash’s phone and found what appeared to be videos that she had secretly made. of her conversations with her husband about her infidelity.
In a clip, he tells her, “You’re a validated cheater.” Moments later, Nash asks his wife, “The one you’re cheating on – is he at Homebase or Tesco, or is he a friend of the family?”
In a third, recorded less than two weeks before the death, Nash accuses his wife of being “a schemer.” He told her, “You cause chaos, you try to cause drama to get attention.”
And in a fourth clip, he says, “You’ve been cheating on me for the past four months.” She tells him it’s actually “eight months.”
Police found the bodies of Louise (left) and Jillu at their home in Great Waldingfield, Suffolk
Mr Josse said: ‘After killing his wife and his daughter, the defendant made a determined effort to try and cover it up – not so much the murder, but some of the evidence behind it. He tried to destroy his phone, his wife’s phone and also tried their home computer.’
The prosecutor said police managed to access Ms Nash’s phone, where the videos were stored, but were unable to access the defendant’s phone. The police also investigated a computer tower of the family home.
Mr Josse said the defendant had access to three TikTok videos at 6.25am, which he said showed the ’embittered and self-pitying mindset from which the defendant was entrenched’.
One of the videos he watched read: “A broken man who has rebuilt himself is very dangerous.” A second said, “Tell me why, when things get tough in a relationship, women are told to leave it and men are told to try and work things out.”
The third, which Kermit the Frog showed by a fire, said, “Do girls really feel sorry for hurting a man or do they just apologize and never think again about how she affected his life.”
The defendant was not in the dock at the hearing on Thursday and the judge, Mr Judge Edward Murray, addressed the jurors on this. He said, “You will see that the defendant is not here today, but you must not speculate as to the reason for his absence.” The process continues.