Woman tells court that Waterlooville sister said her murder suspect ‘had choked her before’
Sexton denies charges of murder, rape, and coercive or controlling behaviour.
The sister of a woman who was allegedly strangled by her partner told a court her sister had informed her that he had tried to choke her previously.
“Jealous” Stephen Sexton, 39, is alleged to have strangled Joanna Derkacz, 37, in the early hours of December 28, 2023, at their home in Nevinson Way, Waterlooville.
Sexton, of Cherrywood Gardens, Totton, denies murder, rape, and coercive or controlling behaviour at the retrial.
In a video-recorded interview with police shown to the jury at Winchester Crown Court, Ms Derkacz’s sister Arleta Derkacz described going to her sister’s home on the morning of December 28 2023 to check on her after not being able to contact her.
Arleta said: “The atmosphere was like creepy inside. Stephen looked really scared. He came downstairs and I asked him ‘Where is my sister?’ and he said ‘She’s not here’.
“I could see he was lying and was shaking, his eyes were all over the place. I said ‘Stephen, I know you are lying, where is my sister?’”
She said that he continued to say that Ms Derkacz was out with friends.
Arleta said: “I said ‘I am going upstairs’. He said ‘No, you won’t’. At that moment, I swear to God I heard a voice from upstairs, it’s really hard to describe. I pushed him away and I ran upstairs.”
She described calling out “Joanna, Joanna” before finding her sister in her bedroom with her head in a “peculiar position”. Arleta said she then ran downstairs and said Sexton was in the kitchen holding a knife before she left the house.
She said: “He did have a knife as I ran downstairs, I was worried he would point the knife at me, he then looked into my eyes and pointed the knife into his hands. I ran out and just started shouting like an animal ‘He killed my sister’. The neighbours came out and I do not remember, I was crying, shouting.
“He looked like he had shivers all over the body, I don’t know if it was because he was scared. Normally he sounds very loud, confident, this time he had a very fragile, soft, not very loud (voice).”
The court has heard that Ms Derkacz, who died of compression to the neck, was thought to have been killed between 12.20am and 12.46am of the same morning.
Arleta said in the police interview that her sister told her that Sexton had been aggressive to her before and had attempted to choke her on one occasion.
She said: “She did say he was trying to choke her but she was trying to go away, she managed to release him with her hands. I know he was aggressive very often, especially in the last year.”
Nicola Shannon KC, prosecuting, has told the jury that in the following hours after Ms Derkacz died, Sexton visited two sex workers.
She has also told the court that when Ms Derkacz spoke to police officers during a welfare visit earlier that month, she said Sexton had not strangled her previously.
(Proceeding)