A COUNCIL official was jailed for life yesterday for hiring a hitman
to execute her husband after he threatened to expose her double life as
a gambler and prostitute.
Florence Samarasinha, 41, was the #30,000-a-year chief housing
benefits officer at Croydon Council in London with a staff of more than
80.
However, fearing for her reputation after her husband, Nimal, 37,
discovered her secret life, she hired an assassin who stabbed him to
death outside their home, the Old Bailey heard.
She was found guilty of both murder and soliciting murder and given an
eight-year concurrent sentence for the soliciting charge.
Mr Justice Phillips told her: ''This murder was not committed in the
heat of the moment but was deliberately planned and carried out in cold
blood.''
The jury heard that Samarasinha's addiction to one-armed bandits
caused her downfall.
She started sneaking out of her office to play the gaming machines and
was soon spending #1000-a-week. In desperation, she turned to
prostitution to keep her spending a secret.
However, her husband, who came from a strict Asian family, found out.
He began divorce proceedings and threatened to expose her secrets as
he fought for custody of their 14-year-old daughter.
The day before he was to reveal his wife's gambling and prostitution
to a social services welfare officer he was stabbed to death by a
hitman.
The court was told that insurance policies on Nimal's life would have
enabled Samarasinha to pay off her #34,000 gambling debts.
Mr David Calvert-Smith, prosecuting, said the killer had never been
traced after escaping in a car from the couple's home in Demesne Road,
Wallington, south London.
Outside court, police said Nimal had a premonition his wife was
plotting his murder. He had even laid down in his will the songs he
wanted at his funeral, including an ironic request for Stand By Your
Man.
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