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| Rejected drifter confesses to
killing mother and daughter |
Motive remains mystery as double
murderer faces up to 35 years in prison
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Tragic victims: Ukleigha Batten-Froggatt, 6
Nicole Batten
Killer Mark Andrew Nicholas
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THE brutal killer of a Camden mother and her daughter confessed
this week in the hope that he will be spared a sentence that could
mean him dying behind bars.
Slim, shaven-headed Mark Andrew Nicholas, 30, pleaded guilty to
two murder counts at the Old Bailey on Monday.
His victims were Nicole Batten, 33, and her six-year-old daughter,
Ukleigha Batten-Froggatt, who was on Camden Council’s “at
risk” register at the time.
Their bodies were found on March 3 when police broke into a flat
in Levita House, Ossulston Street, Somers Town, which Miss Batten
shared with the jobless Nicholas.
He is now being held in custody while psychiatrists examine him.
Judge David Paget QC will sentence him on January 30.
Drifter Nicholas, from Pembrokeshire, faces life terms and a minimum
of up to 35 years in prison.
Prosecutor Julian Goose QC will outline the Crown’s case at
Nicholas’s next court appearance.
Nicholas is defended by leading QC Richard Ferguson, who will make
a plea in mitigation.
As yet Nicholas has not revealed the motive for the killings, which
stunned the community.
But it is known he was told Miss Batten wanted nothing more to do
with him.
She ended their relationship and hoped he would just walk away from
her and her child.
Police were alerted by Camden social workers when “lively and
lovely” Ukleigha failed to show up for school in February this
year.
When officers broke down the front door of flat 200 the full horror
of the terrible tragedy was revealed. Miss Batten was lying dead
in bed.
She had been stabbed through the chest with a large kitchen knife
which lay nearby.
Her daughter was on a sofa and had been suffocated. She had no other
injury. A pathologist determined that the victims had been dead
for at least 36 hours.
Detectives launched a nationwide murder hunt for Nicholas and circulated
his photograph.
He had been drawing money from cashpoint machines using Miss Batten’s
cash card.
A week after the bodies were found, detectives arrested Nicholas
at a hostel in Hackney where he had been staying. |
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