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LONDON (Reuters) - A part-time woman police constable was murdered outside her home by a gang of men hired by her unfaithful husband to kill her, a court heard on Wednesday.
Nisha Patel-Nasri, 29, bled to death on the doorstep of her Wembley home in northwest London after being stabbed with her own kitchen knife in May 2006, the Old Bailey was told.
Heading the plot to kill her was her husband, Fadi Nasri, 33, who was leading a double life and wanted her dead to cash in on a 350,000-pound life insurance policy, prosecutors said.
The couple were having money problems, the court heard, with spiralling debts totalling more than 102,000 pounds.
The court was told that Nasri, the owner of a limousine business, was having a passionate affair with a Lithuanian prostitute, Laura Mockiene, which included overseas holidays. He had moved in with her just months after his wife's murder.
Prosecutors said this detail was important in explaining the crime, which happened just days before her brother was getting married.
"Nasri had a number of motives, which taken together provided the motive, we suggest for murder," lead prosecutor Michael Worsley told the jury in his opening address.
"Nasri wanted his wife dead. He did not do it (the murder) himself, but he did ... organise the killing."
He arranged to play a game of pool with a friend on the night she died, to allow him a perfect alibi.
Jurors were told that hairdresser Patel-Nasri, who owned her own salon, was popular and a very hard worker with a bubbly and energetic personality.
She was also a part-time police officer -- a so-called "special constable" -- but had not been on duty or in uniform on the night she was killed.
While to most, it seemed that she was enjoying a happy three year marriage, described by one friend as "lovey dovey," Worsley said it was anything but.
Patel-Nasri, described as tiny and barely 5 foot tall, confided to another friend that she was considering divorcing her unfaithful husband, who had previously owned an escort agency called Fifth Heaven.
The court heard that just under a week before her murder there had been an attempted break-in at their home, leaving the lock damaged, which had made her security conscious and unlikely to open the door to a stranger.
"That incident, five days before Nisha was killed, was either a reconnaissance for what was to be done or an unsuccessful and bungled attempt to do what happened, and succeeded, five days later," Worsley said.
With Nasri, of Barnet, north London in the dock were Rodger Leslie, 38, described in court as a drug dealer, also of Barnet; driver Tony Emmanuel, 42, of East Ham, east London and bouncer Jason Jones, 36, of Manor Park, east London.
Prosecutors said there was a "mass of communication" between the group on their mobile phones around the time of the murder.
The court was told that Emmanuel drove the getaway vehicle, Jones was the killer while Leslie acted as the middle man between Nasri -- a business associate -- and the other two.
The group deny one count of murder.
The trial, before the Recorder of London, judge Peter Beaumont, continues.
Nisha Patel-Nasri, 29, bled to death on the doorstep of her Wembley home in northwest London after being stabbed with her own kitchen knife in May 2006, the Old Bailey was told.
Heading the plot to kill her was her husband, Fadi Nasri, 33, who was leading a double life and wanted her dead to cash in on a 350,000-pound life insurance policy, prosecutors said.
The couple were having money problems, the court heard, with spiralling debts totalling more than 102,000 pounds.
The court was told that Nasri, the owner of a limousine business, was having a passionate affair with a Lithuanian prostitute, Laura Mockiene, which included overseas holidays. He had moved in with her just months after his wife's murder.
Prosecutors said this detail was important in explaining the crime, which happened just days before her brother was getting married.
"Nasri had a number of motives, which taken together provided the motive, we suggest for murder," lead prosecutor Michael Worsley told the jury in his opening address.
"Nasri wanted his wife dead. He did not do it (the murder) himself, but he did ... organise the killing."
He arranged to play a game of pool with a friend on the night she died, to allow him a perfect alibi.
Jurors were told that hairdresser Patel-Nasri, who owned her own salon, was popular and a very hard worker with a bubbly and energetic personality.
She was also a part-time police officer -- a so-called "special constable" -- but had not been on duty or in uniform on the night she was killed.
While to most, it seemed that she was enjoying a happy three year marriage, described by one friend as "lovey dovey," Worsley said it was anything but.
Patel-Nasri, described as tiny and barely 5 foot tall, confided to another friend that she was considering divorcing her unfaithful husband, who had previously owned an escort agency called Fifth Heaven.
The court heard that just under a week before her murder there had been an attempted break-in at their home, leaving the lock damaged, which had made her security conscious and unlikely to open the door to a stranger.
"That incident, five days before Nisha was killed, was either a reconnaissance for what was to be done or an unsuccessful and bungled attempt to do what happened, and succeeded, five days later," Worsley said.
With Nasri, of Barnet, north London in the dock were Rodger Leslie, 38, described in court as a drug dealer, also of Barnet; driver Tony Emmanuel, 42, of East Ham, east London and bouncer Jason Jones, 36, of Manor Park, east London.
Prosecutors said there was a "mass of communication" between the group on their mobile phones around the time of the murder.
The court was told that Emmanuel drove the getaway vehicle, Jones was the killer while Leslie acted as the middle man between Nasri -- a business associate -- and the other two.
The group deny one count of murder.
The trial, before the Recorder of London, judge Peter Beaumont, continues.
