Pic: Metropolitan Police Service
The brother of the former Eastenders’ actress Gemma McCluskie has been found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey today.
Tony McCluskie, 35, was told he will serve a minimum of 20 years in jail after the jury found him guilty by an 11-1 majority.
McCluskie had admitted killing his sister but had pleaded not-guilty to murder, on the grounds that he had “suffered loss of control” prior to the actress’s death.
The prosecution claimed that Gemma McCluskie, 29, was beaten to death following a row about an overflowing kitchen sink.
Details about how McCluskie had cut up his sister’s body into six pieces using a meat cleaver were told to the court last week.
Her torso was found in Regent’s Canal in March last year, identified by a small tattoo of a bow on her body . Her limbs and severed head were also later recovered from the canal.
Gemma McCluskie appeared as the character Kerry Skinner in over 30 episodes of Eastenders in 2001, alongside co-stars Natalie Cassidy and Brooke Kinsella.
(Footage shown at trial of Tony McCluskie taking the body to the canal):
