Dad faces life in jail for murdering 3-year-old son (London, England, United Kingdom)

We've posted on this case before. Now dad PAUL DEYA has finally been convicted of murder in the stabbing death of his 3-year-old son.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23916391-father-faces-life-in-jail-for-murdering-three-year-old-son.do

Father faces life in jail for murdering three-year-old son
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent
21 Jan 2011

The adopted son of "miracle baby" preacher Gilbert Deya faces a life sentence at the Old Bailey today for stabbing his toddler son to death and attacking his wife.

Paul Deya, 32, attacked three-year-old Wilson in the family's Bermondsey flat after he and his wife split up.

When Jakeline Otieno returned home from church he chased her out of the flat and stabbed her.

Their 20-month-old daughter was in her cot as the murder took place but was left unharmed.

Deya is the nephew of the self-styled "Archbishop" of the Gilbert Deya Ministeries who adopted him as a youngster when his father died.

Gilbert Deya is fighting extradition to Kenya, where he is wanted for baby abduction and child trafficking, on the grounds it would infringe his human rights.

He had claimed that he could give babies to infertile women through the power of prayer which has been found by a High Court judge to be a "falsehood."

The ministeries, based in Peckham, are said to have 34,000 followers and styles itself the "fastest growing church in Britain and worldwide".

Its congregation donate 10% of their income to the church creating enormous wealth for its leader.

Both Paul Deya and Ms Otieno, 29, worked at the church in the Old Kent Road.

He was born in Kenya and came to Britain on a student visa.

They married in June 2004 but their relationship deteriorated as she found him obsessive and overbearing.

On the day before the tragedy in November 2009 they had agreed to separate and he would move out, the court heard.

But while she was in church Deya texted her with the message "I wish you all the best."

Immediately concerned, she rushed home but found all the doors locked and bolted from the inside forcing her to climb in through the bathroom window.

Inside she saw her child in a pool of blood in his bedroom then her husband ran at her bare chested with a kitchen knife.

She fled screaming from the flat but he caught her on the outside stairs and stabbed her in the head and neck in front of a neighbour and his child.

She was cut so badly her right ear "was held together by the cartilage alone," said Richard Whittam QC, prosecuting.

Deya then returned to the flat and knifed himself in the neck and stomach but recovered in hospital.

Inside the flat officers found a handwritten note beginning "Hi Jackie" and including instructions for the burial of his and his children's bodies.

In the note Deya accused her of cheating on him and said he had "decided to disconnect (him)self completely with you including my children."

He added: "Your warnings and threths pushed me into this."

After this arrest Deya wrote letters claiming his wife had had affairs and he suspected one of his children was not his.

He even accused one of the officers guarding him in hospital of seeing his wife.

In court Ms Otieno denied having any affair.

Deya had pleaded not guilty on the grounds of diminished responsbility but was convicted by the jury of murder. The jury cleared him of attempting to murder his wife. He had already pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of malicious wounding.

Two psychiatrists had diagnosed him as suffering severe depression which led to a psychotic episode. But prosecution doctors said the depression was only mild and did not effect his intent to kill.

He will be sentenced next month by Judge Giles Forrester QC.