A Greek helicopter pilot who murdered his British wife and tried to blame her death on burglars has launched an appeal, saying he regretted the crime and it was committed in the heat of the moment.
Nearly two years to the day after the death of Caroline Crouch, her husband’s attempt to reduce his 27-year life sentence started at an appeals court trial in Athens. Babis Anagnostopoulos, 35, told the tribunal on Monday that although the murder had filled him with shame, it had not been premeditated.
“In no way did I want to hurt my wife,” the UK-trained aviator said. “I had nothing to gain. What I loved was lost that day. I am ashamed … and hate myself. I want to say sorry to everyone.”
Crouch, a 19-year-old student, was suffocated as she slept in the couple’s rented maisonette in the Athens suburb of Glyka Nera.
Anagnostopoulos originally tried to pin the crime on foreign robbers, claiming his young wife had been murdered during a bungled break-in. It was only after he was faced with new evidence from Caroline’s smartwatch about six weeks later that he confessed, telling police he had used a pillow to smother her in what a coroner would describe as a “prolonged and agonising” death.
The court will rehear the case from the beginning with new evidence considered 12 months after he was found guilty by a lower tribunal in Athens.
Anagnostopoulos’ lawyer, Alexandros Papaioannides, said six witnesses who had not previously given testimony would testify before the appeals court in the pilot’s defence.
They include his parents, a retired civil engineer and schoolteacher, who have stood by their son despite the national outrage over the crime and attempted cover-up. “There are going to be quite a lot of new witnesses and documents … that will help reverse [the court’s handling] of this case,” said Papaioannides. “I think there will be a more correct assessment of the circumstances that prevailed that day in regards to the crime he committed and whether it was committed in the heat of the moment.”
Taking the stand on Monday, the two duty officers first called to the scene in the early hours of 11 May 2021 recalled how they had come across a puppy’s remains hanging from a bannister. The pilot, whose sentence included a 10-year prison term for killing the dog, admitted he had choked the pet husky to make the alleged break-in look more realistic. The couple’s 11-month-old daughter, Lydia, was discovered next to her mother’s lifeless body. “There was a double bed and a woman was lying face down on it. She appeared to be dead,” said Christos Vardikos, the first officer to testify. “The baby was on the bed with its hands on her mother … [she] wasn’t crying when we went in. She turned around and looked at us.”
The pilot hopes mitigating circumstances and his good behaviour in a maximum-security jail will help convince the appeals court to reduce his jail term. It is a prospect described as “absolutely despicable” by his former father-in-law, David Crouch, a retired gas and oil executive who settled in Greece with Caroline’s Philippines-born mother before relocating to Manila, where Lydia is now being raised.
“I think it will be a sad day for women when the murderer of a defenceless woman who slept with her child will serve less than his full prison sentence,” he said earlier this year. “This man is beyond contempt.”
