Man jailed in UK after slashing his toddler daughter's throat
A man has been found guilty by a UK court of battering his ex-partner to death with a hammer and slashing his toddler daughter’s throat weeks after he was reported to police for making threats.
Roland McKoy has been jailed for life with a minimum of 35 years at the Old Bailey for the “deliberate, horrific killings” of his 22-month-old daughter and his ex-partner.
McKoy inflicted horrific injuries on Valerie Forde before killing 22-month-old Real Jahzara in a fit of “anger and resentment” at being told to leave the family home in Hackney, east London.
The 54-year-old handyman attacked Mrs Forde as she got ready to leave for work on March 31 this year – the deadline she had set for him to move out of the three-bedroom terrace.
Afterwards, he drank bleach and left a perverse note on Mrs Forde’s face which was stained with Jahzara’s blood, blaming her for what happened.
It read: “Valerie Forde you never stop playing derty ticks (sic) for many years on all people places and things you targets. Now the world must see the sudden destru..tions you creates in our families, our home and on yourself. Our fame in history. Roland.”
During the trial, McKoy carried on blaming the 45-year-old community project manager despite the overwhelming weight of evidence against him.
He claimed that she was “jealous” of his close relationship with Jahzara and she killed her own child whilst in the grip of a demonic “trance” – thinking that he was about to take her away with him.
After finding the baby dead on the landing, he said he went to confront her in the bathroom and hit Mrs Forde with a hammer in “self-defence”.
He said: "Maybe I just felt like I was floating. I could not get away even though I wanted to get away. I just couldn’t control myself. When I saw the baby dead, I just did not know.”
But prosecutor Ed Brown QC said he had concocted a fictitious version of events.
He said: “It is plain that the defendant had attacked Valerie Forde with the hammer, slashed her face and neck with the machete and stabbed her multiple times with the screwdriver.
“It is equally clear from the evidence that the defendant used that same machete to cut Jahzara’s neck from one side to the other. Each attack was a brutal one.”
The court was told that Mrs Forde’s older daughter Carrise, 28, had listened on an open phone line in horror to the screams of her half sister while McKoy was attacking their mother.
She called the police who went to the house in Oswald’s Meade and found Mrs Forde and Jahzara dead.
Beside them, McKoy was curled up in a foetal position surrounded by weapons. When he was roused, he was sick and his vomit smelled of bleach, the court heard.
The prosecution said McKoy, who emigrated from Jamaica in the 1980s, had made a series of threats against his family before the murders.
In January this year, Mrs Forde texted her sister: “I have to be very very careful and pray for my safety each day and night.”
The following month, she reported him to police after he told a neighbour that he was going to burn the house down with everyone including himself inside.
McKoy said a neighbour had informed him that police followed up the report and came round to the house – but had left after finding that neither he nor Mrs Forde were at home.
Emotions ran high during the trial which was attended by some of Mrs Forde’s friends and family.
Jurors were reduced to tears as the victim’s text messages were read out and a man in the public gallery stormed out while McKoy was in the witness box.
The jury took two and a half hours to convict him.
The verdict was greeted with cheers and clapping in court.
