Amy Parsons with her fiance Roderick Deakin-White. Photo / Facebook
Amy Parsons with her fiance Roderick Deakin-White. Photo / Facebook
A British man accused of murdering his Australian fiancee sent messages to her secret lover telling him to "back off" seven days before her death in London.
Roderick Deakin-White, 38, is accused of bludgeoning Amy Parsons, his 35-year-old partner, to death as she showered in their Whitechapel flat on April 25 this year.
The graphic designer allegedly fled the scene in Tower Hamlets, east London, but told police he was a "murderer" after handing himself in the following day.
In the two weeks leading up to the alleged crime, Parsons had initiated a friendly relationship with her colleague James Saunders at financial services firm Old Mutual.
They went for coffee before meeting for lunch at the trendy New Zealand restaurant Caravan, which was Parsons' favourite restaurant in central London.
Saunders said their budding relationship featured a lot of what he called gentle ribbing and what she called "banter".
"Because she is Australian, a lot of it would relate to being an Australian," he told the court on Wednesday at Deakin-White's murder trial.
Parsons and Saunders soon started exchanging hundreds of messages on WhatsApp, which rapidly became flirtatious, with them admitting to having feelings for each other.
Eventually, in the early hours of April 14, she caught an Uber to his home in Beckenham and they spent the night together.
Two days later, they had coffee together during which Parsons told him she had told Deakin-White that they had been intimate.
"She had told Rod about sleeping with you and mentioned that Rod was trying to make big gestures to try and prove himself to Amy," prosecutor Gareth Patterson said.
Saunders agreed she had said that but he didn't pry as to what the "big gestures" were.
Amy Parsons with her fiance Roderick Deakin-White. Photo / Facebook
They continued to exchange messages, with Parsons revealing her confused emotional state and lack of sleep before meeting at Saunders' home for the second time on April 17.
Parsons mentioned in a message to him later that night that the defendant had been "stalking" her WhatsApp profile.
At 3.18am the following morning, Saunders received a WhatsApp message, which he didn't view immediately, from the defendant.
"What are playing at, back off," the message said.
"You, what are you playing at, back off."
A few hours later, Parsons revealed that she had told Deakin-White "everything" about their secret intimate relationship.
She also told Saunders she was "all over the place emotionally" and wished she could sleep.
"I woke to 123 text messages and 17 missed calls (from Deakin-White), I still looked at your WhatsApp first," Parsons told Saunders.
Jurors heard Parsons and Deakin-White had been in a relationship for several years and was very dependant on her.
The prosecutor said: "Before the defendant met her he had had little in the way of relationships with other women and the evidence that you will hear suggests that after he met her and the relationship began that he became extremely dependent upon her.
"The flat in which they lived was owned by her. He did not go out to work. She provided him with financial support, working as a Personal Assistant to a manager in an Insurance Company in the City.
"It was Amy who paid the rent for the flat every month. The evidence suggests he was reliant on her."
