Man accused of lashing out after relationship ended

A “crazy” boyfriend decided to “teach” his girlfriend “a lesson” by raping and then murdering her before going to visit sex workers, a court heard.

“Paranoid” Stephen Sexton, 39, is accused of strangling Joanna Derkacz, 37, to death in the early hours of December 28, 2023, at their home in Nevinson Way, Waterlooville.

Winchester Crown Court heard how their "toxic and abusive relationship” led Sexton to kill Joanna after she ended things having revealed to a friend: “I hate him.”

Sexton, of Cherrywood Gardens, Totton, denies murder, rape, and coercive or controlling behaviour at his retrial.

The court heard how Sexton displayed jealous, controlling and coercive behaviour after their relationship of three years broke down while they still lived together.

The middle of December 2023 saw a “turning point” from Joanna who had been “sympathetic” towards Sexton despite his increasingly unhinged behaviour. “You need to get help because you are destroying your life,” she said in a message.

But Sexton would lash out at Joanna with him stamping on her laptop and locking her out of the house, which proved to be the “final wake up call” after she “made it clear the relationship was over”, prosecutor Nicola Shannon KC told jurors. “It was the trigger to finally asking him to leave the house and sleep in separate bedrooms.”

She added: “The key is Stephen Sexton’s desire to control. When it was clear she was excluding him from her life he decided she could not go on without him.”

In the final message Joanna sent Sexton she warned him: “Don’t say tomorrow I didn’t warn you.” She had previously also warned the defendant she would call the police and get a retraining order against him after a row over him denying taking a book from her that was found in his room.

“You’re so crazy, your actions are not normal,” she said, with Ms Shannon saying Sexton was “gaslighting” her.

In another message Joanna blasted: “Everyone will find out what a snake you are.”

The victim also admitted she was fearful of Sexton after previously telling her sister Arleta of an attempt to strangle her. “I don’t feel safe around you,” Joanna told Sexton.

Ms Shannon added: “Tragically her concerns were well founded and within an hour she was dead at the hands of Stephen Sexton.”

The prosecutor told jurors Sexton wanted to “teach (Joanna) a lesson by raping her” before going on to kill the recruitment consultant by “applying pressure on her neck until she was dead”.

Having killed Joanna, Sexton then went to visit two sex workers in Portsmouth after taking his former partner’s car and mobile phone.

He left for the first visit at 1.32am on December 28 before returning and then went out again at 2.19am before getting back at 3.08am to the house where Joanna was dead, the court heard. “When he got back he did nothing to help her knowing she was dead,” Ms Shannon said.

The court previously heard Joanna was found dead at their home by her sister Arleta amid concern about Joanna not picking up her phone.

Sexton told Arleta Joanna had gone out with friends but she pushed him away and found her sister “lying on the bed, lifeless”, it was said.

Arleta then ran downstairs and started shouting: “You killed my sister, you killed my sister”.

After running outside where neighbours had gathered Arleta was “screaming like an animal” that Sexton had “killed my sister”.

Sexton, meanwhile, had been clutching a knife downstairs before he was found by police in a shower cubicle with “both arms cut” with him “bleeding heavily”. When arrested he told officers: “Please let me die.”

A post mortem found Joanna had internal fractures of bones on both sides of her neck, which prosecutors allege was caused by being strangled in Sexton’s forearm or the crook of his elbow.

His DNA was also found on Joanna after he allegedly raped her, jurors were told.

(Proceeding)