Woman killed in ‘relentless and merciless’ attack over affair, court told

A man killed his lover in a “merciless” attack after her husband found out about their affair, a court has heard.

David Cheres, 21, allegedly kicked and slashed at 43-year-old Tiprat Argatu with a knife and scissors at her home in Whitechapel, east London, in the early hours of Sunday 24 January last year.

He has admitted her manslaughter by diminished responsibility and is on trial at the Old Bailey for murder.

Opening the case on Monday, James Dawes KC said: “Between 4am and 4.50am – a period of about 50 minutes – the defendant battered and kicked a woman to death in her bedroom.

“Tiprat suffered a savage and prolonged attack at the hands of this defendant.”

Jurors heard Cheres broke Ms Argatu's bones by stamping on her and that he attacked her with a kitchen knife and a pair of long scissors.

Mr Dawes said Ms Argatu "was unarmed and offered little resistance" when the defendant repeatedly attacked her with weapons.

“He used so much force with the scissors that he bent them in half.

“Tiprat appears to have held up her hands in order to try to defend herself because some of the stab and slash wounds were on her hands and fingers.

It was not possible to determine the order in which the wounds were inflicted because no-one witnessed it, Mr Dawes said.

“But you may conclude that this attack took time, took effort and it was relentless and merciless,” the prosecutor told the jury.

A pathologist concluded the cause of death was severe blunt impact trauma to the head and neck.

Mr Dawes suggested the motive was linked to the defendant’s feelings about “the way his life was going” and the loss of his friendship with the victim’s husband.

Cheres had been friends with Mrs Argatu’s spouse, who had discovered he was having sex with her just hours earlier, the court heard.

Mr Dawes said: “Perhaps he blamed himself or her for the breaking of this friendship.

“What is clear, he directed this outburst of anger at Tiprat – not at himself – in the small hours of the morning, about 12 hours after (her husband) had discovered that they were having an affair.”

The court heard that the victim was originally from Thailand and her husband was Romanian, and the attack took place at a flat in Ellen Street, Whitechapel.

Cheres, also of Ellen Street, Whitechapel, denies murder and the trial continues.

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