Mum who '˜murdered her two young daughters at Yorkshire safe house' breaks down in dock

Samira Lupidi, 24, from Heckmondike, West Yorkshire, denies murdering daughters Evelyn Lupidi, three, and 17-month-old Jasmine Weaver, hours after moving into a safe house after allegedly suffering abuse at the hands of the girls’ dad Carl Weaver, 31.

The court heard that after emerging with blood-soaked hands from a self-contained flat in which she had been placed, support workers overheard Lupidi say: “It’s his fault. Now he has a reason to kill me. If I can’t have them then he can’t have them.”

Bradford Crown Court heard Lupidi had met Mr Weaver over the internet when they were both living in Italy and had been dating for around four-and-a-half years.

Evelyn, who was diagnosed with autism, had been born in Italy, shortly before the family moved to the UK.

Peter Moulson, prosecuting, said: “They had moved to England as soon as Evelyn had been born.

“She told officers that Mr Weaver had become controlling of her and had only allowed her to contact her family by telephone.

“He didn’t allow her to take contraception and she was given very little money.”

On November 16 2015, the day before Lupidi killed the girls, she called police and told them that she had been assaulted by Mr Weaver the night before and he had hit her on the arms and legs.

Mr Moulson said: “As a result of these allegations Samira Lupidi and her two children were taken to a women’s refuge in Bradford.

“During an induction at the refuge she told a support worker that Mr Weaver would want the children and would kill her and the children if he found her.”

Mr Moulson said a meeting between Lupidi, Mr Weaver and the children had been arranged for the following day.

He said: “On November 17, a support worker went to the flat in the refuge.

“Samira Lupidi opened the door and ran out the room. She was on the telephone speaking in English and Italian.

“She was heard to say: ‘I hurt them, I killed them’. She was heard repeatedly to say that she had killed them.

“Her hands were covered in blood. A worker, Farzana Kauser, went into the room and saw the girls with stab wounds to the chest.”

The court heard Evelyn and Jasmine had been stabbed a total of nine times each in the chest with a 10-inch kitchen knife, as they lay in their single beds in the self-contained flat inside the safe house.

Mr Moulson told the court: “At the time of her arrest, the defendant said she wanted to kill herself.

“She said: ‘I know what I have done. My life is nothing now’.

“She said she had hurt her children and wanted to hurt herself too.”

Lupidi, dressed in black trousers, a white blouse and a grey cardigan, wept throughout the prosecutor’s opening, leaving the dock for around five minutes.

PC Kirsty Wright, who took Lupidi to the refuge after responding to the allegation of domestic abuse at Lupidi’s home in Heckmondwike, said in a statement read to the court that Jasmine and Evelyn were due to be baptised on November 21 and she feared that Mr Weaver would use the occasion to leave her and take the girls with him.

PC Wright said: “She was scared what Carl was going to do with her and that she wanted to move back to Italy.”

Lupidi had told officers that she had heard Mr Weaver say in conversation with his brother Chris Weaver, and brother’s girlfriend, Amy Sutton, that Mr Weaver was going to abandon her.

Mr Weaver is alleged to have said: “On Saturday someone won’t come back with us.”

PC Wright’s statement added: “He said he would take her in the car and leave her so ‘some paedo’ will find her.

“She said Mr Weaver had said the children would be ‘better off without her’.”

The court heard Mr Weaver had allegedly prevented her from having her own bank account and took control of the family tax credits.

He also allegedly refused to allow her to have a job and she was forced to ask him for money for clothes and food.

She had asked him for money, shortly before the killings, to buy a new coat but he had turned her down.

She had tried to leave him in September 2015 but he had managed to convince her to stay with him.

When interviewed by police Lupidi made a no comment answer to all questions put to her.

Farzana Kauser, who was the first person to see Lupidi after the stabbings, said: “I looked at her hands and there was blood on her hands that looked like it had been partially wiped off.

“I stepped into the room. The first single bed had a quilt pulled over it. On the second single bed I was shocked to see a baby lying motionless on it.

“I could see a lot of blood on her chest and some on her hair.

“She [Lupidi] said she had told her mum that she had killed the children and repeated over again: ‘I killed the children’.

“Samira said she had tried to stab herself but said she could not do it.

“She was constantly on and off her phone and said that she had been speaking to her mum.”

Shamaila Kosar, another worker at the refuge who witnessed the aftermath of the killings, said: “As I entered the flat I could see Jasmine lying there in her nappy and vest.

“I could see blood by her head. Her whole chest looked open with gashes in it.

“She [Lupidi] didn’t seem to have a lot of blood on her. She was wearing a pair of pyjamas.

“She said she had told her mum and the girls’ dad what she had done.

“I couldn’t look at her because of what she had done.

“She told me in broken English that she thought her boyfriend would do something bad after that.

“She thought her boyfriend, his brother and his brother’s girlfriend were all plotting against her.”

Nazeem Ashgar, who worked at the refuge and was with Lupidi before police arrived on November 17, said: “She kept saying that she loved her kids. She said: ‘He said I am a bad mother, I am now’.

“She was crying and kept saying she loved her girls and kept showing pictures of her girls on her phone.

“She kept repeating that she loved her children.

“The conversation was never about what she had done, but about what her partner had said to her about being a bad mother and that he would take the kids away from her.”

The court heard Lupidi was constantly on the phone to her mum in Italy until police arrived.

Lupidi, who admitted killing the girls as a result of diminished responsibility at a previous hearing, denies two counts of murder.

The trial will continue on Tuesday.