Roderick Deakin-White (pictured) murdered his girlfriend Amy Parsons
The family of a woman murdered by her ‘Psycho’ cross-dressing killer has slammed his 17-year prison sentence as as ‘disappointing’.
Roderick Deakin-White, 38, loved to dress in women’s clothes just like the character in the classic Alfred Hitchcock film, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.
His girlfriend Amy Parsons, 34, had told him she was ending the relationship because she could no longer stand him wearing women’s underwear when they had sex.
But as she got ready to leave their flat in Whitechapel, east London, and meet her new man, he attacked her in the shower with a metal ‘chin up’ bar.
The Australian PA was left to die in a pool of her own blood on April 25 this year, while Deakin-White left the flat and set the alarm off. He was today sentenced to at least 17 years in prison.
But her sister Eve Parsons, 40, who is originally from Melbourne but now lives in London said: ‘No sentence is going to bring Amy back, but 17 years does not do her justice in our opinion.’
Ms Parsons’ mother attended the sentencing supported by friends and family who embraced one another after the Judge locked up her killer.
Eve Parsons said: ‘We are disappointed with the sentence. Based on what the judge had said, he had agreed with so many of the prosecution’s points, we thought the sentence would be much higher.
She added: ‘Amy was a very private person. She would be mortified to have all of this out there in the world for people to see.
‘It should not have been and had we not had to come to trial, it would not have been.
‘It is hard to listen to all of that, knowing how she would have felt about it.’
Her sister also read an emotional impact statement to the court from the witness stand, which read: ‘Amy was a bright light in our family, a beautiful person.
‘We are as heartbroken as it’s possible to be, there’s a sense of hopelessness you feel when something like this happens.
‘The requirement to identify our beautiful Amy in the mortuary with one side of her face stitched up, was a horrible thing to see.
‘That was our last image of Amy, an image that will never leave us.
Ms Parsons (pictured with Deakin-White) was left to die in a pool of her own blood on April 25 this year, while he left the flat and set the alarm off
‘You cannot understand how much our lives changed that one morning when we found out our sister had been murdered, the fact that the defendant had the audacity to get up on the stand argue that it was manslaughter.
‘We all know what happened in that relationship and it wasn’t the picture he painted.
‘She planned to get married, have children, move back to Australia and grow old with someone who loved her.
‘To sit here in court and hear the defendant say that it was a traumatic experience.’
Sentencing the killer to life imprisonment and ordering him to serve at least 17 years, Judge John Lafferty said: ‘On 25 April this year you murdered Amy Parsons in the most horrible, savage and brutal way, the sentence for that is fixed by law, it is life imprisonment.
Deakin-White is pictured in a CPS handout photo wearing a Christmas-themed jumper
‘There’s no sentence that I can pass on you today that will bring back Amy Parsons, a young, successful, vivacious, kind hearted woman in her mid thirties whose life was taken by you.
‘There’s no sentence that I can pass that can even begin to assist that family with their grieving process or even balance out the grievance that they feel.
‘The nature of the killing, it was a brutal sustained attack on a woman, naked in her shower in her own home where she had the right to feel safe. She was therefore particularly vulnerable.
‘It was a sustained attack lasting between two to three minutes according to her neighbour who could hear her screaming in a terrifying way.
‘The first two blows struck the back of her head, but they didn’t kill her. She then did what she could as an unarmed woman to protect herself from an angry jealous man.
‘She clearly was defending herself but you seized her right arm, I can’t say whether it was to stop you or to protect her head.
‘Your intention was to kill, I have no doubt about that.’
Pictured: Devastated Eve Parsons, the sister of Amy Parsons, and the victim’s mother, Leonie Parsons, are pictured outside Snaresbrook Crown Court last week
Throughout the hearing Deakin-White was motionless, staring blankly ahead.
Deakin-White told jurors he was abused by a family friend who made him wear women’s clothes when he was a boy.
The killer regularly wore women’s underwear, stockings and make-up during his relationship with Ms Parsons.
He even had a Facebook page featuring him as an alter-ego called ‘Jane.’
Ms Parsons started seeing James Saunders after they met at Old Mutual, the insurance company where they worked together.
Romance blossomed over lunch at Australian restaurant Caravan after she told him it was her favourite place to eat in London.
They first had sex on 14 April. Less than two weeks later Ms Parsons would be dead.
Deakin-White had discovered text messages between the pair and Ms Parsons had resolved to dump her fiance on the night she was murdered.
Mr Saunders said: ‘We had told each other we had loved each other at that point and she had made up her mind that she was going to end things with Rod.’
The victim messaged Deakin-White saying she needed to ‘sort her s*** out’ before going home to confront the killer on the 25 April.
‘I assumed that was her saying she was going to talk to Rod that night to tell him she was going to leave him,’ said Mr Saunders.
The victim messaged her lover that evening after Deakin-White stormed out of the flat saying: I don’t know how tonight is going to pan out. He’s not accepting anything I say.
‘He’s gone to the shop and he’s trying to make all these changes and grand gestures and I’m like no I don’t want it.’
The victim sent her lover the final text message she would ever send at 8.15pm – a love heart.
At 9.16pm, he messaged her back saying: ‘Let me know how you’re doing.’
Half and hour later he messaged her again, but Ms Parsons was probably already dead.
Deakin-White said they shared a bottle of prosecco and half a bottle of wine on their balcony when she told him she was leaving him that night for her new lover.
He said he begged her not to leave but she told him: ‘Give me my toothbrush’ and took a shower.
‘I’m pacing between the door and the hall way and I pick up the thing I pick it up and yeah, I lose it, I start hitting her with it,’ he said.
‘She’s facing the shower and I started hitting her I’m not doing it, it doesn’t seem real.
‘I can’t stop I want to stop but I won’t let me I’m doing it and I know its…I can’t stop doing it I’m hitting her over the head.’
Deakin-White left the flat, pausing to set the burglar alarm and was next seen wading into the Thames at Shadwell in an apparent suicide attempt.
A passer by stopped him and he handed himself into police, admitting: ‘I’m a f***ing murderer’.
Deakin-White, of Whitechapel, east London, admitted manslaughter but was convicted of murder.
Judge Lafferty told Deakin-White: ‘This was the culmination of a man who was increasingly angry about the fact that she had formed another relationship and she was determined to end that relationship.
‘In your messages you say you cannot lose her, you’re going to fight for her, you’re not going to let her go. As with many angry, jealous resentful men.
‘If you cannot have her, no one will have her and you killed her.
‘You then carefully turned off the shower, turned of the light in the bathroom, closed the door, left the premises and set the alarm.
‘You took the phone belonging to Amy as well as your own phone.
‘You left the flat with the intention of seeing if there was anything you could think about that would help your case. You disposed of your phones.
‘I don’t accept there was any degree of provocation, I reject your evidence of what she said before going into the shower.
‘The evidence on the cameras from your arrest does not show this. You do not mention any of these provocative words to the boat man, to police when you turned yourself in, or in your main police interview.’
Three of the trial jurors attended court to see Deakin-White sentenced as well as a large group of her family and friends, including James Saunders.