McCluskie murder trial: Brother told cabbie ‘I have my sister in suitcase’
Gemma McCluskie - Credit: submitted
Window cleaner Tony McCluskie, 35, is accused of murdering 29-year-old Gemma last March, dismembering her body and taking it in the minicab to be dumped in the Regent’s Canal.
He booked the cab to take him to the canal from the flat they shared in Pelter Street, Bethnal Green, and was seen on CCTV pulling the luggage along the towpath at around 10.35pm on March 2—before dumping it into the water.
Gemma’s torso was recovered four days later. The head was found six months after that.
“I asked him what was in the bag,” minicab driver Jilul Haque told the Old Bailey.
“He replied it is his ‘system’—I assumed it was a stereo or something.
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“He lifted it—it looked very heavy.”
But McCluskie’s barrister Jeremy Dein suggested Mr Haque misheard the word “sister” and thought he said “system.”
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The QC added: “The two words are very similar—it’s possible thinking back that he said ‘sister’, not ‘system’?”
The cabbie opened the boot when they arrived in Kingsland Road and watched McCluskie drag the suitcase down a cul-de-sac to the canal.
A camera recorded McCluskie dragging the suitcase down the towpath at around 10.55pm. He was later seen on several cameras walking back to Pelter Street.
He is alleged to have murdered Gemma after a row over leaving taps on and flooding the bathroom, beating her over the head with a blunt object, then dismembering her body with a meat cleaver.
His lawyers have suggested there was a struggle and Gemma may have fallen back and fractured her skull.
McCluskie admits manslaughter but denies murder. The trial continues.
