THREE PEOPLE have been jailed for murder after a woman was tortured, starved, burnt and battered to death.

Ashana Studholme, 39, of Greenhill Road, Harrow; Shaun Pendlebury, 26, of Tewkesbury Road, Ealing, and Lisa Richardson, 45, of Broomcroft Avenue, Ealing, were found guilty of the murder of Shakira Spencer.

They were also found guilty of preventing the lawful burial of her body following a 12-week trial at the Old Bailey.

All three were jailed for life and they will each serve a minimum of 34 years. They were also each sentenced to five years imprisonment for preventing lawful burial.

Spencer’s body was found at a property in Holberk Road, Ealing, on 25 September 2022,  after police forced entry into the property – following neighbour’s concerns.

Shakira, although she had vulnerabilities, had been a happy and healthy woman.

She had known the three for some time, in what was a complex web of relationships, but in just under a year she had fallen under their complete control.

They stole her self-respect, her children, and her home, took over her finances and controlled her life.

They had subjected her to a prolonged campaign of beatings, enslavement, coercion and control, humiliation and degradation over a period of months.

This culminated in a frenzied, violent assault reaching a climax between 9 and 12 September 2022, from which Spencer most likely died on 14 September 2022. Instead of taking her to hospital, Pendlebury and Studholme drove Spencer back to her home in the boot of a car and in a completely unfathomable evil act, bundled her in a cupboard and left her to die.

‘Beautiful soul’

In a statement, Spencer’s family said: “Shakira was a beautiful soul who cared deeply about people and loved spending time with her family and friends. She was always thoughtful and wanted to be liked. Her eagerness to please people made her vulnerable.

“We have struggled as a family to come to terms with the fact that Shakira was controlled, enslaved and tortured by the defendants in the months leading up to her murder. The defendants took over her flat whilst she slept in the bike shed. They isolated her from her family and friends. Her children were poisoned against her.

“Shakira’s health deteriorated to the point she was almost unrecognisable. Her life was reduced to an empty and miserable existence. We will never be able to comprehend the defendants’ cruelty when Shakira would have only wanted to be their friend. We can only think that the defendants have done this for their own sadistic pleasure.

“We were incredibly pleased and relieved when we found out that all three defendants would be held accountable for their heinous crimes. However, nothing will bring Shakira back to us and her children will now grow up without their mother.”

‘Cruel and sadistic’

Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Chief Inspector Brian Howie said: “No sentence can ever bring Shakira back, or compensate for the loss of such a beloved family member, but my team and I are glad to see that the terms handed down today mean these three evil people will spend many, many years behind bars.

“During the trial Shakira’s family and friends listened to deeply traumatising evidence of the depraved acts of cruel torment committed by the three defendants. They murdered Shakira in the most savage and inhumane way imaginable.

“Shakira was a beautiful, happy mother who was kind and had a trusting nature. Shakira could be vulnerable and these defendants took advantage of that by controlling and isolating her from everyone she knew in order to control and enslave her in the most dehumanising and degrading way.

“The family’s ordeal has been compounded by the behaviour of the defendants, who have each lied, providing implausible accounts and explanations to try and absolve themselves of any responsibility. Whatever their cruel and sadistic motives were, there is no acceptable explanation for what Shakira was put through.”

During the trial, the court heard the trio “treated her like a slave”, scalded her feet and fed her only ketchup from sachets.

Spencer was “isolated and robbed” of all self-respect, and dropped drastically from a size 74kgs (11st 9lb) to a size 6.