Jailed: ‘Wicked’ predator murdered woman with jigsaw in Brent shipping container

Romanian Neculai Paizan, 64, of Peel Street, Holland Park, was sentenced to 22 years in prison today (July 25) at the Old Bailey, after being found guilty of murdering Agnes Dora Akom at the same court last Tuesday (July 19).

Agnes Akom (Image: Met Police)

Paizan hit the 20-year-old at least 20 times over the head with a jigsaw power tool during a brutal assault on May 9 last year in a container he had made into a makeshift home in North Acton Road, Brent.

Following the verdict, Ms Akom’s family, who had watched the trial via videolink from Hungary, accused him of “dragging her through the mud” after her death as a result of his lies about her, in which he falsely claimed she was a sex worker and that she had poisoned him with iced coffee.

Judge Richard Marks QC said Paizan had shown no remorse as he jailed him for life with a minimum term of 22 years.

He told Paizan: "You maintained repeatedly in evidence before the jury you hadn't laid a finger on her and hadn't inflicted any of her head injuries, but the CCTV evidence showed nobody but the two of you arrived at and left the containers.

“It is clear on your lengthy evidence that you remain in a complete state of denial as to what you did in that frenzy of violence that took away that young girl’s life at the age of 20.

“These were shocking acts of wickedness on your part.”

The court heard in mitigation that Paizan was being held in isolation after being attacked in prison three times due to the nature of his crime, and was likely to die behind bars.

During the trial jurors watched CCTV footage of Paizan calmly washing his hands and face before bundling her body into the boot of his car inside a bag.

The next day, he was again captured on CCTV when he transported her to Neasden Recreation Ground, where he used a wheelie bin to transport her to woodland where he buried her beneath a pile of logs and branches.

Neculai Paizan with a shovel (Image: Met Police)

Neculai Paizan with a wheelie bin (Image: Met Police)

Over the coming days, Paizan visited the park where he had hidden the body five times while telling his son he wanted to go back to Romania.

Ms Akom, a coffin-maker from Hungary, was reported missing by her concerned boyfriend, with whom she lived in Cricklewood.

With her head in a black plastic bag, her badly decomposed body was discovered by police sniffer dogs on June 14 last year, a week before her 21st birthday.

The judge praised the Metropolitan Police investigators for their work in bringing Paizan to justice, which was "nothing short of exceptional", and without which "there is no way the defendant would have been tracked down and brought to justice".

"This was police work of the highest order of which they should feel immensely proud," he said.

Paizan met Ms Akom 54 times over the 12 months before the murder, and jurors were shown photographs he had taken of her semi-naked, the court heard.

In a victim impact statement, Ms Akom’s mother said her daughter and her boyfriend Peter Lenart had moved to Britain from Hungary for a “new life”.

Reading her statement, prosecutor Jake Hallam QC said the young couple’s hopes had been “thoroughly extinguished through the actions of this defendant”.

In his statement, Mr Lenart outlined the problems the couple had after they moved to Britain due to their youth and “lack of money”.

He described Paizan’s lies to the jury as compounding his grief, saying: “I have had to hear Paizan say Agnes slept with 15 or 20 people a day – these are really hurtful comments. She did not do these things. She was not a prostitute.

“She was my love, my partner and my best friend. He preyed on her vulnerabilities and knew it.”