Shakira Spencer: Three people sentenced to life for torture, murder

Three people have been jailed for at least 34 years for the murder of a woman from west London who they tortured and starved.

Shakira Spencer, 35, was subjected to a campaign of cruelty and humiliation, the Old Bailey heard.

After inflicting fatal injuries, Ashana Studholme, Lisa Richardson and Shaun Pendlebury left her body to decompose at her Ealing home, in September 2022.

The leader of the trio, Studholme, 39, had initially befriended Ms Spencer.

The defendants, who were found guilty in December, subjected her to an “orgy of violence”, Judge Angela Rafferty said.

At Friday’s sentencing hearing, attended by members of Ms Spencer’s family, the court was shown footage the three had filmed of them abusing her in the weeks before her death.

The prosecutor, Ben Holt, said it showed they had enjoyed the violence they inflicted on Ms Spencer.
He described the brutality in the case as “wholly exceptional”.

‘Pack of animals’
Over a weekend in September 2022, the killers carried out their final sustained attacks on her, their trial heard.

Boiling water was poured over Ms Spencer, a lighter and spray can were used as a blowtorch, burning her face, and she was beaten around the head with a blunt object.

The dying woman was then driven to her home and bundled into a cupboard. Her body was later moved to a bunk bed where it was left to decompose.

In a personal statement read to the court, Ms Spencer’s father Lloyd Camacho described his daughter as vulnerable. He said the family’s heart had been torn out by her murder.

In her statement, Ms Spencer’s mother Merjia Spencer compared the killers with a pack of animals.