Simbiso Aretha Moula, 39, a midwife at Romford hospital’s
staff, was found dead in her home in Lower Mardyke Avenue, Rainham, on the
morning of January 4, 2019. Her husband
Garikayi Moula - who was also found dead, having taken his own life.
The couple’s eldest child, Nyasha Moula, said the pair met
in Zimbabwe when Garikayi was 30 and Simbiso was around 18.
Nyasha said: “From what my mother told me… their
relationship was briefly good but then he became quite abusive and used to beat
her often, even more when she became pregnant with me.
“After I was born, she came to the UK on her own to study
nursing and midwifery… years later she told me it was her plan for me to come
over and that we would start afresh, just the two of us.
“I’m not sure what happened but he went over to be with
her… that’s when the beating started again. One night, he tried to hit her and
she told him ‘we are in England now, it is a crime to hit your wife. If you
ever hit me again, I will call the police and they will arrest you and deport
you.’
“According to her, he never hit her again but he was still
controlling. I do remember some arguments that got quite heated and things
broke all over the floor.
“A year after I came to the UK my mother was pregnant with
my younger brother and she told me years later that she felt she could not
leave him because of it.”
Nyasha said Garikayi was jealous her mother had “so many
people who cared for her”, forbade her from going out and would “berate her”
about cleaning, her parenting and how much she used her phone.
The couple tended to have big arguments “at least twice a
year”, which would last “a couple of hours”, after which they wouldn’t speak
for several days.
During the summer of 2018, Simbiso ended her relationship
with Garikayi, briefly kicking him out before allowing him to return “for
financial reasons”, although he slept on the floor.
In the September, Simbiso told her daughter she had met someone else. Nyasha told the court: “I was happy for her but my brother and I were very worried because Garikayi was a jealous person who believed only he could have my mother. She said it would be fine and that they were over but he still thought they had a chance and was becoming very depressed.”
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