Man who decapitated wife and tried to flush her head down the toilet jailed for life

A crane driver who cut off his cheating wife’s head with a kitchen knife and tried to flush it down the toilet has been jailed for life.
Dempsey Nibbs, 69, flew into a rage when his wife, 60-year-old Judith Nibbs, admitted she had slept with at least eight other men during their 30-year relationship.


Nibbs battered his wife over the head with an iron bar, then decapitated her because he ‘couldn’t stand the sight of her face’. A court heard how Mrs Nibbs may still have been alive as he did this.

Today, Nibbs was jailed for life with a minimum of 21 years.

‘I’m sure you don’t regret your wife’s death save for its effect on your own comfort and well-being,’ said Recorder of London Nicholas Hilliard QC.

The OId Bailey had heard that Nibbs, who had denied murder, had tried to kill himself after the murder as police arrived at the pair’s flat in Shoreditch, east London.

The court also heard how Judith had told colleagues at Meals on Wheels that her estranged partner had threatened to kill her previously and grabbed her by the throat.