Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.

In september 20017 a young french nanny was tortured murded

and trown on a garden bonfire.

fire brigade turned up one of them was putting the fire out and stamping it out he relized that there was a body in the ashes.

fingers,limbs ,and part of a nose.

21 year old sophie lionette had also been interrogated and tortured,they beats her with an electrical cord.

and she pushed and slapped herWhile been filmed by her killers.

sabrina Kuider and Ouissem (Sam) medouni.

A quiet and unassuming girl being harangued threatened and intimidated.

it was a torure video.

sophie ad been subjected to what could only be described as waterboarding.she had four broken ribs and a broken jaw.

southfields ,a well -to -do suburb of london. just next door to wimbledon
it’sa safe place.where people move to bring up their families.

It´s a unique part of london it’s feels like a village. people call it the soutfield village.
everybody know each other ,everybody knows moms´, the nanny’s this is what soutgfield is , family orientated.

In september 2017 ,a series of disturbing events unfolded in south fields

It took place at the home of a glamourous mother of two Sabrina Kouider.and her partner Medouni

what happened was so gruesome, so disturbing,that shocked residents to the core.

they cocked chicken on a BBQ nearby to try and hide the smell
neighbor saw the smoke coming from the garden .it was directly on the street so you couldn’t not see it .

The fire was in the garden of Kouider and Medouni´s flat

on the corner of Pulbra and wimbledon park roads , directly opposite the news agent.
One neighbor whose house backed onto the garden was so concerned about the fire,she rang 999.

the police turned up and the road was seald off, there about at least five or six police car, two fire engines

and they put up the white tent and they blocked off the road.

then eventually another marked van came. man in white suits got out that’s when neighbors realized that something is quiet serious here.
no one couldn’t understand why the police were there over a fire .it didn’t make senseto the neighbors..

and then they saw Medouni being escorted out of the house. with handcuffs.

The man who’d been arrested by the police was Ouissem Medoun partner of sabirna Kouider s maduni was driven away from questioning, forensic officers arrived.

It shocked the community ,who couldn´t understand why they were there

but then forensic investigators carried out what locked like a body . A big red box , not coffin shape but quite large coming out after the forensics had done their work

There was a lot of rumors going around that they found a body .police later confirmed there was human remains in the fire. but the body was so badly burned, they couldn’t even i dentify the victim.

about a week later when they identified the body neighbors worked it out by that point most of the people knew quite quickly through the prosses of elimination who it was.

Neighbors had guessed correctly, the charred remains in the bonfire were those of the 21 years old nanny who worked for sabrina Kouider and Ouissem Medouni

Not only had Medouni been arrested but so had his partner sabrina.
within 36 hours of the discovery of sophie body on the bonfire . both had een charged with mirder

the hwole community was very taken aback and shocked, couldn’t understand .it just seemed bizzare and really weird.

for months, sophie had suffered appaling abuse at the hands of her glamorouse employer

It is an astonishing thing to happen especially in southfield
A friend aske her what happened at that point she said that sabrina beat her.
Abuse that would end in a murder trial. escribed by the judges stranger than fiction .

On 20 th september 2017

A farmer discovered a body on a bonfire in surburban garden in south london.
A man and a women have been arrested on suspicions of murder after a body was found in a garden in south fields.

it soon became clear that the remains were those of sophie 21 old nanny working for mother of two sabrina Kouider and her partner Ouissem or (sam ) Medouni

Sabrina and Medouni had lived in the rented ground floor flat in south fields .since 2013. they apair to be a successful and glamorous young couple.

sabrina was a fashion designer.Medouni a financial analyst. but sabrina had a dark side . she was erratic volatile and prone to mood swings

and had delusional obsession with her celeberity ex-boyfriend mark waltton.founding member of the Irish boy band boyzone.
walton and sabrina had a passionate and turbulant relationship, they separated in 2013 ,but sabrina became obsessed and fixated by him.

going back five years when sabrina stopped going out with mark walton she appeared to him to be a volatile character and prone to mood swings but she also had something of a hold over hi
she was prone to outbursts to shouting at random people in the street and acting in a strange and volatile manner .
they had an acrimonious split,she left and he didn’t know why.

At the murder trial it emerged that mark walton had helped sabrina financially by paying thefirst few months on her southfields flat. but when he stopped supporting her sabrina became enraged.
when ther relationship between sabrina and mark broke down that was the catalyst for all of the things that happened subsequently.

she didn’t take the breakdown well, she wouldn’´t have taken the breakdown while it´s the kind of person that she is and she became fixated on either getting him back ,getting control back over him or if she couldn’t do -that getting revenge.

Not long after the breakup sabrina started making serious allegations about walton the court heard she claimedhe was stalking her , that’ he’d harmed her family. all the alligation she mad made about him were totally untrue.

sabrina got it into her head that he was stalking her ,she said that he was controlling her with black magic and all sorts of things.so the background to the murder really goes back a long long way, well vbefore they even met sophie lionnet.

It was heard in court that sabrina made more than 20 calls to police and social services about mark walton.
In every case ,police concluded that the allegations were not true that sabrina was a fantasist.
she even reseived a police caution for posting defamatory statement about him online.

No one knows why sabrina developed her obsession
It would appear that sabrina has certainly developed a range of delusional thinking

She certain viewed the world in a different way her approach to relationships was very different it Could be very very impactful and significant life event for her, that might have changed her approach to relationships
Affected her self- identity and it’s much more useful to think of sabrina from that trauma – informed perspective

sabrina also had a dysfunctional relationship with Medouni whom she ´d known since childhood .
And althoug he lived at her flat ,he would often disappear for months at a time.
you wouldn’t put them together as a couple at all , no one seemed to know them and they were not sociable .they didn’t come to street parties , they didn´t chat or introduce themselves.
they didn’t want to be part of the community.which is quite an unusual thing around the community .they didn’t want to partake in anything.

allthough the couple were thought somewhat strange by neighbors it was sabrinas behavior in particular that stood out

December 2016 a deluded and obsessive sabrina was about to welcome a naive young nanny from france into her family.

Sophie  grew up in the village  of peron in rual france.It’s  couple of hours drive south of Paris .she lived there with her mother  and stepfather.

sophie was a nice girl, always  smiling ,who loves live and  had a joy of living.

She was shy .it was  necessary  to tear the words from her mouth , so that she could speak with her mom and stepfather.

 sometime she shatted , but she was a shy girl.

sophie studied early ears child  education at college ,because she loved children and  and  always came to  her  so she  chose to  do this job.

sophie found it difficult to get a child care  job locally, so when a friend showed her  an advert for a french -speaking nanny to work with a family in London. she decided to apply.

she had never  left france,her goal was not to go abroad to work but this  opportunity  would open doors for her to find work.so she said to herself” that since i cannot  get work in france,i´m going to  England”

 because it would be tempory,it would  give her experience which would help her to find work in france. 

plus it would improve her english there .

Then in january 2016,just after  her 20th  birthday she came to London and started working for  sabrina  full time as her nanny.

when sophie first arrived no one knew  who she was.no one saw her with anyone.there was so many nannies around in southfield.they  meet up on weekends at  resturant’s  they´re all grouped up.they had a social life as well.

But sophie never had that. from day one she was by  herself or with  the familiy.

Neighbors  assumed that she was just  a part of the family.

Neighbors  assumed that she was just  a part of the family ,just an aunt or a cousin.a relative.because she was with children all the time.
The amount of hours . the time ,the efforts. the patience she had. you could not pay someone to do what she did.it was just a natural assumption of neighbors that she was a member of the family .Not the hired au pair.

for the first year or so , no one outside the family took much notice of sophie. as this home video filmed in the soutfield´ flat shows,she seemed happy.
she spoke to the children,she could speak to them easily, but with anyone else she just

In the summer of 2017 after sophie had been with the family for 18 months
sabrinas obsession with mark walton took another bizarre and twisted turn. by now he was living in los angeles . and totally out of reach .

so sabrina transfered some of her rage and frustration onto her young nanny
she exerted more control over her .stopping her from eating.

sabrina who was now broke didn’t pay sophie’s wages.
when sophie was offered part- time work by her friend to help out sabrins stopped all contact between them .

The friend knocked on the door and Medouni opened the door and she asked him or sabrina is at home and he told her that sabrina is not at home.after that she heard her voice

and the friend said ” why are you lying, to me , she’s at home”
the friend think that sophie was controled by sabrina, she couldn’´t decide by herself where she can go and the friend haven’t even noticed that sophie had her own free time.

Not only was sabrina starving and isolating sophie. she was also stopping her from going home to france.even to visit her mother .

Back in france , sophie’s motheer had received texts and facebook messages from her daughter. saying she was unhappy and wanted to come home .saying that she needed a lttle bit of money to finance her return,so the mother deposited the money in sophies account.so she could buy her ticket to return.

sophie´s mother then received two unexpected phone calls from sabrina .
in whitch she made som strange allegations about her daughter.
sabrina had told the mother that she was keeping sophie ,because there were disagreements and problems she wanted to solve.
the mother said to sabirna , ” listen, do your best to make her come home.”

the situation between sabrina and sophie was getting  worse. sabrina was making increasingly wild allegations about sophie.

Accusing her of stealing a diamond ring and a plotting agains the family

no one could never in there’s wildest dreams imagine what  sabrina  and  Medouni were doing to sophie behind closed doors.

or  what they were planning to do with her next.

In september 2017 the body of  french nanny  sophie lionnet was found burning  on a garden bonfire in south london.

mother of two , sabrina Kouider and her partner Ouissem (sam)  Medouni , were arrested immediately and taken into police custody.

six months later the trial began at the old  bailly with both defendants facing charges of murder.

sabrina was very beautiful and very glamorous but  also quite troubled,she looked indignant , she  shock her head , she almost  enjoyed the interest in her.

How dare she not be  full of  guilt or remorse for what she done?

saying “oh tell them i didn´t do it, i didn’t  murder anyone”,

it was quite fraught people knew  right then  that she was going to be a difficult  defendant .

The impression of Ouissem ( sam ) Medouni was that he was very much  the quieter one, silent brooding even and  a meek figure in the.

while both sabrina and  Medouni admitted to  perverting the course of justice by burning  sophie’s  body,the both denied murder.

both  defendants had essentially the same defense that the other person did it.

 they both argued that they were asleep while the other person had carried out the murder.

The bath where Sophie was killed ( Image: REX/Shutterstock)

While no one knew exactly what had happened  to cause  sophie’s death,the prosecution was reveal key piece of evidence.which clearly showed the exctreme cruelty she´d been  subjected to behind closed doors.

In the weeks before her death sophie had been victime of series of brutal and  violent interrogations 

 unbelievably these sessions were recorded by sabrina and   Medouni mobile phone.

These recorded interrogations were all centered around  sabrina’s obsession with her ex-boyfriend. mark walton.

sabrina obviously couldn´t get to mark walton because  by then  he was living in los angeles .

And she diverted all her anger  and anxieties and obsession onto sophie and she got it into her head that sopghie  was working with mark walton to spy on her and to wreck her life.

She concocted in her head a bizare idea  that  there was plot against her and   Medouni and so over time she began to questionSophie for  many many hours on end about what exactly she thought had been going  on.

 Extracts of  these interrogation tapes were played to a shocked court.

recording 1-08-08/17

sabrina: you will not go back to france untill you’ve told me the  truth.i’m going to spoil your life as you have spoiled mine.

She started  coming out with all these accusations about sophie meeting mark walton secretly and plotting  against her.what   you were listening to was a quite and  unassuming girl being harangued treatened and intimidated

They said she’d be locked up for 40 years,she was like a murderer all  of this was to make her confess

recording 1 -08/08/17

sabrina : wheter you speak or you don’t speak at your trial you will do so,you will be jailed.

sabrina was the one  who was instigating this whole thing and she was the one thatg was  keeping control.

 That’s very unusual in 95 percent of cases it will be a man especially in this  type of case

Recording 1-08/08/1917

 Medouni: you better know that we will not let you go back untill we know the whole , whole truth! nothing but the truth.

Medouni probably would  have been willing to do anything for her.

It´s not even a case really of whether he believed what  she was saying ,it´s that he believed he wanted to do something to please her.

The taples  contained evidence not  only of verbal abuse. but violance whitch now  become more and more extreme.

There were about eight and a half hours of interrogations in the weeks leading up to sophie´s death ,and they got progressively worth with evidence  that Sabrina Kouider beat sophie at least  three times.

she beat her with an electrical cord and she pushed and slapped her .

Recording 2/11/09/17

sabrina: i´m going to kill you , okay.be wuick ! 

You can hear  on the recordings  noises that sounds like  slaps. allthough sabrina said that they  weren’t  slapping sophie  but it did certainly sound like she was being physically  abused 

Recording 2/11/09/17

 

sabrina: think carefully  about 40 years in prison,closeyour eyes for one  minute  okay.imagine yourself,everyday in a cage like an animal.

sophie’s mother  particularly who struggled to contain her emtions and one point during this harrowing footage she broke down in tears and had to leave the courtroom.

On  the 18th september

after five weeks of interrogation  sabrina and   Medouni  made a video recording of sophie as they attempted to get her to confess to working with mark walton.

This is the last image of sophie alive ,taken from that recording.

In the end they ground  her  down so much that  in the hours before her death, they filmed her acctually confessing to colluding with mark walton whitch clearly completely untrue

It was a figment of sabrina day’s imagination.

When sophie´s body was discovered, it was  so badly burnt. it was impossible to know exactly how she died.

Allthough it was clear from the post- mortem that she’d been seriously assaulted

sabrina said that she accepted that she’d pushed sophie around but she denied being very violent towards her.

But sophie had suffered four  broken ribs and a cracked sternum three days before her death.

And on the night  of her death she had a broken  jaw.

Sabrina and Medouni weren’t shying away from the fact they had put  this young girl  through horrendous questions for many many hours.

Their casew was that each of them denied the murder thathad taken place.

 Sabrina said that it was all medouni and he’d become absolutely enraged that he got  a pan of water and towel and torturing her demanding to know the truth

The charred remains of Sophie’s glasses

sophie had been held in the bath and subjected to what only can described as waterboarding.

sabrina woke up in the night to find sophie dead and said “what did you done”

but meduni  said the complete opposite and he said  thathe was asleep when all this happened.

 But cruci ally the prosecution produced a witness who contradicted both these stories.

One of the  key pieces of evidence in the trial was from a third party .a witness in the house  who ´d heard both sabrina and medouni in the bathroom with sophie.

saying breath ,breath , that was a critical of evidence because neither  one of  the defendants was really telling the truth.

A bottle of patio cleaner bought by the killers to cover their tracks

also center to the prosecutions case was the fact that  the authorities weren’t  alerted to sophies death.

At some point they decided rather than to call the police or an ambulance to dispose ofher body.

They built a bonfire in the garden by their ,by the kitchen

The victim’s suitcase was hidden in a shed in abid to conceal the crime.

and they put sophie’s body into a suitcase and lit the fire.

One of the neighbors called 999  and alerted the fire brigade to a fire that was potentially out of  control.

when the fire firefighters arrived ,they found medouni was at the scene apparently in control  of the fire.

They insisted on putting the fire out. because they were concerned that it was  a bit too close to the doors.

and  as one of them was putting the fire out and stamping it out he realized that  there was a body  in the ashes  and he described seeing fingers , and limbs and part of a nose.

it was very grisly.he turned to hiscolleague and said there’s a body  in the bonfire.

Medouni  still trying to get away with it at that stage.trying to explaine away the body as the carcasses of a sheep that he bought  at the market but it would have been  obvious to the firefighters when they started looking through the grizzly remains  that this was not a sheep they were looking at.

It´s clear from  the evidence that had the  neighbor not alerted the authorities, sabrina and medouni could have got away with murder.

The gruesome evidence about the broken and despairing nanny  being beaten  and tortured to death were difficult for anyone  to sit through

But for sophie´s mother it was unbearable

At the  old bailly after a grueling 43-day trial ,the jury retired to decided there was  enough evidence to convict  sabrina and  Medouni of murder. vut even now neither defendant appeared to show any remorse

 all that mattered to medouni was  medouni and sabrina and no one else counte and  sabrina so wrapped up in herself in her own world that sophie really didn’t metter.

and even through all their evidence, everythingthey said  to the jury , they never once expressed any regret or sadness that sophie had lost  her life.

21 old  french nanny sophie lionnet was murdered after being beaten and tortured by mother of two sabrina Kouider and her partner   Ouissem Medouni

After a grueling  murder trial where each defendant blamed the other for her death ,the jury  retired to concider the distrubing  evidence.

 It was a full court .  after 30 hours of deliberations  the jury returned their verdict.

Both sabrina  and medouni  were found guilty of murder.

 more details

 Both Sabrina Kouider and Sam Medouni were convicted of murder, conspiracy, and perverting the course of justice and are serving 30 years to life. Sam Medouni is appealing his sentence.