02 March 2024 , 09:54
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This haunting CCTV is the last moving image of a mum who was tortured, beaten and starved to death by three sadistic thugs.
Shakira Spencer, 35, is seen ringing the doorbell of the home of Ashana Studholme's flat in the days before her death. She had, at this stage, become a "frail figure" due to repeated beatings by Studholme, boyfriend Shaun Pendlebury and friend Lisa Richardson. The vicious trio was jailed for life on Friday at the Old Bailey in Central London.
The defendants, from west London, "treated her like a slave", scalded her feet and fed her only ketchup from sachets, the court had heard. The abuse lasted for months until a neighbour in Hanwell, west London, raised the alarm when they saw maggots crawling from under her front door on September 25, 2022. Ms Spencer was found dead inside the next day.
In addition to the doorbell footage, further CCTV has also been released by police, showing Ms Spencer slowly crossing a road in the days before her death. It was the last time the mother was seen in public.
Shakira Spencer is seen looking frail on CCTV just days before she died (BBC)She looks gaunt and, at this point, a court heard she had become a "skeletal" size six - a huge drop from her "beautiful, happy, healthy" size 16 frame several months prior. Her killers had befriended her, the court heard, only to abuse her, forcing the mother to sleep under newspapers in the hallway at Studholme's home in Harrow, northwest London, and treating her as a slave.
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The yobs tortured Ms Spencer with a makeshift blowtorch and poured boiling water on her from a kettle, they whipped her with belts and hit her with fists and a glass bottle. When the killers tired of their sadism, they bundled Ms Spencer into the boot of a car and drove her back to her flat, where she was locked in a cupboard.
Ms Spencer’s son, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said in a victim impact statement read in court on Friday: “I’ve suffered with daily nightmares and anxiety over what happened to her, I cannot get the horrible image of my mother looking skinny and unwell out of my head.
(L to R) Shaun Pendlebury, Ashana Studholme and Lisa Richardson have been sentenced to life in jail“Why were they (the defendants) so heartless? What could cause them to torture another human? I hope that every day they feel bad for the choices they have made. I cannot believe people she thought were her friends would ever do this to her.
“These people are cruel and evil, they do not deserve to live a normal happy life again. To me, my mum was the best – she was not perfect but she made me feel happy, safe and loved, I miss her every day and wish for a chance to see and speak with her again. I never got to say goodbye to her, or to tell her that I loved her – these people let her die alone with her feeling she was unloved, as they had taken everybody away from her.”