Man jailed for life for killing former lover after changing plea (From Croydon Guardian)

Man jailed for life for killing former lover after changing plea

8:54am Friday 10th February 2012 in Local news By Hannah Williamson

A man standing trial for battering a former lover to death after a drinking session has been jailed for life after changing his plea to guilty.

Stephen Foad from Fox Hill, Crystal Palace, will serve a minimum of 13 years for the murder of Siobhan Kelly.

Unemployed Foad, 42, changed his plea on the fourth day of the murder trial.

Miss Kelly, of Kendall Court, Tudor Road, Upper Norwood was found dead in her flat on February 7, last year.

Police found the 39-year-old's decomposing body on her bed wrapped in a duvet, after she failed to make contact with her family and friends for three weeks.

The Old Bailey heard Miss Kelly, an alcoholic who was unemployed, was beaten to death.

The jury was told she was attacked in two rooms and that bloody fingerprints and footprints found at the scene matched those of the Foad.

DNA testing showed she had been struck with a broken red candle found in the living room. She later crawled or was dragged to her bedroom, where she was attacked again with a bedside lamp.

A post mortem examination found she had been repeatedly struck to her head, with heavy blow from fists and other items.

There was also bruising to her torso and a number of her ribs were fractured after being stamped on by a shod foot.

Sentencing Foad, Judge Richard Hone QC said: "I think you realise the awful burden placed on the family. I am satisfied you have remorse.

"It is perhaps some comfort to them that you have admitted what you did."