Wellingborough rape accused jailed for girlfriend murder, jury told

Northampton Crown Court heard Sergiu Boianjiu had killed Ludmila Nour at a lake near the Moldovan capital Chisinau in 2002

A man accused of raping and attempting to murder a woman in the UK was jailed in 2009 for murdering his girlfriend in his native Moldova, a court heard.

Sergiu Boianjiu, 38, is accused of attacking the woman as she walked home in Wellingborough in Northamptonshire in February this year.

His trial heard she was left in hospital with a bleed on the brain.

The defendant, of Melton Road North in Wellingborough, denies attempted murder and two counts of rape.

He has admitted attempted rape and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

Prosecutors said Mr Boianjiu attacked the woman, who was a stranger to him, as she walked home from a night out.

CCTV footage of the attack has been shown to the trial, which the prosecution claim shows the defendant repeatedly stamping on his victim's head and face when she was lying defenceless on the ground in an alleyway.

Prosecutors said he wanted to "eliminate the only witness [the victim] to his crimes" and intended to conceal her body in a wheelie bin.

Drainage shaft

The court was told Mr Boianjiu had previously been jailed at Moldova's Riscani District Court on 9 October 2009 for the murder of Ludmila Nour, whose body was hidden in a drainage shaft in a forest.

Prosecutor Ellie Brown said the killing had taken place in the former USSR republic in 2002 and he was released early from his sentence in July 2018.

Defence barrister John Lloyd-Jones told jurors: "We call no evidence on behalf of Mr Boianjiu."

Judge David Herbert QC instructed jurors that evidence about the previous conviction had no relevance to the charges of rape faced by the defendant.

The trial continues.