Joshua Jacques murdered four people in a home in Bermondsey two years ago (Picture: Rex)
A man who brutally murdered his girlfriend and three members of her familyin a drink and drug-fuelled rage has been jailed.
Joshua Jacques, 29, attacked Samantha Drummonds, 27, her mother Tanysha Ofori-Akuffo, 45, her grandmother Dolet Hill, 64, and her partner, Denton Burke, 68, at a home in Bermondsey, south-east London, in April 2022.
He was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 46 years in a hearing at the Old Bailey on Friday.
A court heard he stabbed his victims to death in the middle of the night in a particularly ‘violent and brutal’ rampage.
Prosecutors said he joined a series of FaceTime calls with his mother that night, including one shortly after 2am in which he said: ‘I’m ending it, I’m gonna make a sacrifice.’
Police found Mr Burke’s body at the foot of the stairs and the other victims ‘heaped together’ in the kitchen.
Jacques was found naked in a praying position an upstairs bedroom screaming ‘Allah, take me’, ‘Kill me now’, ‘Get rid of me’, and ‘God please forgive me’.
A montage of the victims shown at a memorial in 2022 (Picture: Rex)
Officers then had to taser him while arresting him.
After being taken to hospital he said: ‘I ain’t even in the wrong, I did them for sacrifice’, adding: ‘I will do something stupid again.’
At trial he admitted killing the victims but claimed he was suffering from a mental health condition.
Jacques’ lawyers said he should be convicted of manslaughter by diminished responsibility, not murder.
Jacques will be in his mid-seventies before he can be considered for parole
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But a jury unanimously found him guilty of murdering all four victims.
The property was the home of Ms Hill, a Jamaican-born NHS worker, and Mr Burke, a council sanitation worker.
Ms Ofori-Akuffo, a nurse, had been staying to help her mother with her cancer care.
Her daughter Samantha, who lived in Forest Hill, was also a regular guest, the trial heard.
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