Every third day, in our #EveryThreeDays campaign, I write about a woman killed by a man. Previously this month, I have written about Sohbia Khan, Chrissie Azzopardi, and three days ago, we remembered Amy-Leanne Stringfellow, who left behind had a six-year-old daughter. Amy’s death was wholly preventable murder had the Police taken more appropriate action.
Today we remember Jacqueline Barratt,34, who at the time of her death had a two-year-old son and lived in Cricklewood, North West London.
In the summer of 2010, Jacqueline met Houssam Djemaa, a Muslim with dual Algerian and British citizenship – he was somewhat younger than his partner, aged just 23.
At first, the relationship seemed very strong, but as time went by, typical signs of domestic abuse and then the violence started to appear. Djemaa was jealous that Jacqueline enjoyed social media and began to accuse her of “looking at men”. Then, later in November 2010, Jacqueline told her mum he had started to hit her. Although only relatively young Houssam Djemaa already had a significant criminal record with convictions for both burglary and theft.
Tensions grew, and one night in December 2010, the two argued. Djemaa discharged a fire extinguisher and threw it at Jacqueline, and then strangled her, ransacking the house, taking the victim’s credit card, phones, TV together with her son’s Nintendo Wi.
Some hours later, Djemma informed a friend that he had murdered Jacqueline, and they walked back to the house and called 999.
Djemma gave himself up.
At Jacqueline’s inquest, The postmortem revealed she had suffered bruising to the scalp, face, neck, shoulder and shoulders, and there was evidence she had been asphyxiated.
Djemma agreed to a guilty charge of manslaughter but disputed murder claiming he lost control after Jacqueline called him ‘a f***ing Muslim c***’ and threatening him with a knife, and his trial took place in June 2011 at the Old Bailey.
The jury rejected his defence, and precisely ten years ago today, June 10th, he was found guilty as charged and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 15 years. He could be as young as 38 on release with a large part of his life still to live.
Meanwhile, Jacqueline Barratt is dead; her son is now just entering his teenage years.
But what I find particularly sad is despite national coverage in the newspapers, Jacquline’s murder (like the vast majority of murdered women) did not cause any outrage.
It is almost as though it is accepted.
For example, The Daily Mail devoted considerable space to her murder, but just ten people made any comment.
This must be called out – that is for a blog one day.
But not today.
Jacqueline Barratt 1976 – 2010
#EveryThreeDays
Authored by Steph @PlaceSteph
LINKS:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2002948/Jacquieline-Barrett-battered-death-Houssam-Djeema-Cricklewood-North-West-London-hated-looking-men-Facebook.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13730389
