On a quiet April morning in 2024, the streets of Hackney, east London, bore witness to a tragedy that would send ripples through the community and ignite fierce debate about the British justice system. Kennedi Westcarr-Sabaroche, a 25-year-old charity worker described as “bright and beautiful” by those who loved her, was found dead in her Vauxhall car on Whiston Road. The man responsible was her long-term partner and father of her young daughter, Gogoa Lois Tape, who would later admit to killing her under the grip of undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia.
The events leading up to Kennedi’s death were chilling in their detail. According to BBC News and Evening Standard reports, on the evening of April 5, 2024, Tape traveled by public transport to meet Kennedi in the Bruce Grove area. She picked him up, and together they drove around before returning to the Whiston Estate. CCTV footage, car tracker data, and Automatic Number Plate Recognition evidence pieced together by detectives showed that Kennedi’s vehicle was parked in Talavera Place, off Whiston Road, late that night.
At approximately 11:25 p.m., Tape was seen on CCTV standing next to the car, then lunging inside for about eight minutes. Prosecutors told Inner London Crown Court that during this time, Tape strangled Kennedi—her cause of death later ruled as “manual compression to the neck.” She had also suffered blunt force injuries to the face and wounds to her hands, consistent with defending herself from a knife attack. A kitchen knife was found in the car, and Tape admitted to possessing a bladed article in a public place.
What followed was a sequence of actions that left many observers stunned. Instead of calling for help, despite having access to two phones, Tape moved Kennedi’s body from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat, buckled her seatbelt, and drove away—reportedly to avoid being seen by neighbors. He stopped at a shop to buy cigarettes, using Kennedi’s phone to text her friend and pretend she was still alive. For over six hours, Tape drove with her lifeless body before finally confessing to his brother the next morning. It was his brother who alerted police at 6:42 a.m. on April 6, leading officers to force entry into the car and attempt resuscitation, but Kennedi was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after 7:15 a.m.
When arrested, Tape made unprompted comments to police, stating, “I lost my head, I’ve been losing my head the last two or three years.” This phrase would take on deeper meaning as the court heard about Tape’s mental health struggles. According to psychiatric assessments referenced by BBC News and London Evening Standard, Tape had been suffering from schizophrenia, experiencing paranoid and persecutory delusions that substantially impaired his judgment and self-control. He had a history of cannabis use dating back to 2014 and had been advised by mental health professionals to stop, but ignored the advice as his condition worsened in 2023. He began making unfounded accusations against Kennedi and displaying erratic behavior, which she reportedly feared could escalate to violence.
Tape and Kennedi’s relationship stretched back to their teenage years, having first met in college a decade earlier. They had split up in 2019 but later reconciled, and during the COVID lockdown, Tape moved in with Kennedi’s family. Their daughter was born in 2022, just three weeks before Kennedi was killed. The court heard that Tape’s behavior had changed after a period of work in Leeds, and both his brother and sister described him as once “big-hearted” but changed by mental illness.
On September 1, 2025, Tape, now 29, was sentenced at Inner London Crown Court. Judge Freya Newbery handed down a hospital order under Section 37 of the Mental Health Act, with a restriction order under Section 41, meaning Tape could be detained indefinitely in a secure hospital. The judge told Tape in court, “She was a bright and beautiful young woman, I heard, and still only 25... That daughter—her daughter and your daughter—is left motherless and the victim of what you did, not just at the time, but she has to carry that around with her, her whole life—her father killed her mother. The family is, I learned, and it is obvious, left shattered and broken.”
While the court acknowledged Tape’s severe mental illness, the sentencing decision sparked outrage among Kennedi’s family and campaigners. Outside court, her mother, Linda Westcarr, delivered a scathing statement: “How can this be right? How is the public safe if killers are treated as patients, not criminals? What deterrent is there for violent men if they see no real consequence of killing women?” She accused the Crown Prosecution Service and police of being “spineless” and failing to fight for justice, arguing that evidence of Tape’s coercive and controlling behavior had been dismissed. “He will go to hospital until he is deemed better—no punishment for the terrible crime he committed. One day, he walks free to restart his life. My daughter will never have that chance. Instead, we are left with a life sentence of grief while he is supported and rehabilitated.”
The family’s anger was echoed by advocacy groups and London Victims Commissioner Claire Waxman, who said, “It is vital that there is a better understanding of families’ trauma and grief, and that they receive clear, and trauma-informed communication throughout.” The family is now calling for an urgent review of Tape’s sentence and has demanded meetings with senior government officials to address what they see as systemic failures. They were also supported by the Joanna Simpson Foundation, whose co-founder Hetti Barkworth-Nanton declared, “We cannot allow another woman’s life to be devalued by a system that fails to recognise the patterns of coercive control and intimate partner violence.”
The case has reignited debate over the use of diminished responsibility in homicide cases, particularly where mental health is a factor. Critics argue that the law allows some perpetrators to avoid murder convictions and mandatory life sentences, raising questions about deterrence, public safety, and the rights of victims’ families. At the same time, mental health advocates and legal experts maintain that the system must account for the realities of severe psychiatric illness and the need for treatment over punishment in some cases.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police, as part of its “New Met for London” strategy, has reiterated its commitment to protecting women and girls from violence, promising to do more to tackle dangerous offenders and high-risk locations. Yet for Kennedi’s family, these assurances ring hollow in the wake of their personal tragedy.
As the debate over justice, mental health, and violence against women continues, the memory of Kennedi Westcarr-Sabaroche endures—a reminder of lives cut short, families devastated, and a justice system still searching for balance between compassion and accountability.
