The daughter of a man accused of murdering the mother of his unborn child blew him a kiss as she left court.
Ioan Campeanu, 44, allegedly stabbed Andra Hilitanu, who was seven months pregnant, at the bedsit they shared in Neasden Lane.
The 28-year-old’s body was found by police in the property’s communal bathroom with multiple sharp and blunt injuries and a fatal wound to her neck early on June 1.
Testifying through a Romanian court interpreter at the Old Bailey today, Sabina Campeanu told the jury that her father was “not against” his girlfriend’s pregnancy and that the couple had a “normal relationship”.
The 21-year-old added: “They had a normal relationship, I think a normal relationship, a relationship the same as my relationship with my husband except for the fact they didn’t have children.”
She told jurors that Andra “was not really happy” about the pregnancy and had wanted a termination. She said: “She didn’t really want any more children because she already had two.”
Asked by Brian O’Neill, prosecuting, if she knew the couple took drugs, and whether Campeanu ever spoke to her about drug abuse, she said: “Andra told me about it. She told me that he had started to influence [her].”
She said her father could get “confused.”
Ms Campeanu received a succession of phone calls from her father in the early hours of June 1, hours after speaking to him when he’d sounded “well”.
She continued: “He didn’t say anything happened to Andra, he only said: ‘I got away from her’, something like that.”
Ms Campeanu’s handwritten witness statement taken in June was translated as: ‘I got rid of her’ but the court interpreter said there was a nuance in the translation that “could mean either”.
Defending, Michael Bromley-Martin, asked Ms Campeanu if she had known her father to be violent, towards her or her mother, to which she said: “No”.
The Met’s nurse practitioner, Hazel Albon, was on duty on June 1 and did a full medical assessment on Campeanu, who was found to have 43 separate “superficial” injuries.
Mr Bromley-Martin asked Ms Albon if the number of scratches, red marks and bruises told “of a violent altercation” to which she replied: “Yes”.
Campeanu allegedly confessed to killing his partner when he called emergency services more than two hours after calling his daughter, a recording of which was heard in court.
He denies murder and a second charge of destruction of a child.The trial continues.
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