Arthur Simpson-Kent, the 48-year-old British/Ghanaian, has admitted murdering his actress wife and their two children.
The accused reportedly fled to Ghana after murdering his wife, Sian Blake, 43, their two sons – Zachary, 8 and Amon, 4 – on December 16, last year at Erith in London and buried them in shallow graves in their backyard garden.
The bodies of Ms Blake and her children were discovered three weeks later on 5th January this year when sniffer dogs indicated the spots where they were buried in the garden during excavation.
A post-mortem report stated that they died of head and neck injuries.
Admission
Although Simpson-Kent is yet to enter his plea to three counts of murder, his counsel, Jim Sturman QC, is quoted as saying that the accused “admits the killings. There is no objection to that being reported.”
Simpson-Kent is due to stand trial on 4th October before Mr Justice Singh.
The accused travelled to Glasgow by coach before flying to Ghana via Amsterdam on December 18, 2015.
Arrest
Simpson-Kent was arrested on January 9 in a joint operation by INTERPOL and the Ghana Police, with assistance from the indigenes of Busua and Butre, the adjoining communities at Busua, a popular tourist site in the Ahanta West District of the Western Region of Ghana.
Before an Accra high court presided over by Justice Merley Wood, the accused agreed to be extradited on 26th January, 2016 and on 12th February he was returned to the UK to be arrested by detectives at Heathrow Airport and charged with three counts of murder.
Surrender
Justice Srem-Sai, who represented the accused in Ghana, stated that Simpson-Kent was not running from justice either in the United Kingdom or in Ghana.
According to the lawyer, the suspect did not think the extradition processes were necessary for him to be sent to the UK and that he was willing and voluntarily submitting himself to be taken back to the UK where closure was expected to be brought to the case as soon as possible.
Kent’s lawyer further stated that his client was in the hands of England to try him as the laws of the country prescribed.
Evidence
Mrs Rebecca Adjalo, a Ghanaian Principal State Attorney, had told the court that there was “overwhelming” revelations about the case.
She said there were CCTV footages chronicling the movements of the fugitive from the time he left the family house, when he withdrew money from an account, boarded a coach to Glasgow, a plane to Amsterdam and through to his subsequent arrival in Ghana.
Earlier, Simpson-Kent was initially arraigned before the Kaneshie District Magistrate Court in Accra for the committal proceedings over a three-count murder charge until a letter from the Chief Justice, Georgina Theodora Wood, ordered the transfer of the case to the high court.
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