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A marine engineer accused of raping and murdering his girlfriend subjected her to a year-long campaign of coercive control that included throwing a dog at her during a row over her choice of clothing, Winchester Crown Court has heard. Stephen Sexton, 39, of Cherrywood Gardens, Totton, Hampshire, denies murder, rape and engaging in coercive or controlling behaviour towards recruitment consultant Joanna Derkacz, 37, who was found dead at their flat in Nevinson Way, Waterlooville, on 28 December 2023.
The prosecution alleges Miss Derkacz was strangled in the early hours of that morning, and that Sexton's first thought after the killing was to contact two prostitutes before taking her car to visit one. He denies any wrongdoing, with his defence team disputing the timing of neck fractures found during post-mortem examinations and claiming they could have been caused during further medical checks.
Daily Dazzling Dawn understands that the jury was told of a pattern of controlling behaviour stretching back to September 2022. Katarzyna Sliwinska, a friend of Miss Derkacz, told the court that problems first became apparent around the time of a festival the couple had been due to attend with their partners. Miss Derkacz arrived alone, explaining that Sexton had stayed at home because he was "high" and "wasn't in a state to go out".
The court heard that Miss Derkacz spent much of the day on her phone as Sexton repeatedly called and texted her. Ms Sliwinska said the group later returned to her house, but at around 3am Miss Derkacz insisted on going home because "she didn't want Stephen to get more angry". The following day, she returned to Ms Sliwinska's home "crying" and "shaking".
"She said they had a fight but she said he threw water at her and threw a dog at her," Ms Sliwinska told the jury. "She was saying some stuff about domestic abuse but I can't remember everything." The court heard Miss Derkacz stayed for three to four days because Sexton had taken her work phone, preventing her from working.
A neighbour, Kirsty Bradfield, also gave evidence, describing how Sexton sought to control Miss Derkacz by letting down her car tyre so she could not drive. Mrs Bradfield told the court the pair were friends who frequently walked their dogs together, and that Miss Derkacz opened up about the relationship three weeks before her death.
"She said Stephen wasn't happy about what she was wearing, that she wasn't covering up enough," Mrs Bradfield said. She added that Miss Derkacz had caught Sexton with a bag of cocaine and that "when he was on drugs their relationship wasn't doing so well". The court heard Miss Derkacz refused to have sex with him while he was using drugs and said she was "glad he was moving out" because "she didn't want to feel trapped".
Mrs Bradfield recounted an incident in the summer of 2023 when Sexton came to her house asking to borrow a pump to inflate a tyre on Miss Derkacz's car. "It wasn't until later that Joanna said to me that Stephen let her tyre down because he didn't want to go somewhere that she was due to go later that day," she told the jury. In a text message sent on 12 December 2023, just over a fortnight before her death, Miss Derkacz wrote to Mrs Bradfield: "He is mental, he was trying to tell me yesterday that everything happened because I was late [by] one hour." She added: "He isn't enough for me. I need more from life than him."
The court also heard dramatic evidence from Miss Derkacz's sister, Arleta Derkacz, in a police interview played to the jury. She described discovering her sister's body in a bedroom after Sexton claimed she was not in the property, then running downstairs to find him holding a "big kitchen knife".
"I just saw my sister being dead. He had nothing to lose; he'd just killed my sister," she told detectives, adding that Sexton said: "You're not leaving." She said she was pulled from the house by her partner and was "petrified", not looking back as she fled. Arleta Derkacz also told the court that her sister had previously said Sexton tried to choke her and that she "couldn't breathe". She described how the couple met on a dating app and that Miss Derkacz had "treated him like family", but from Christmas 2022 onwards she "hated him" because he tried to interfere in her relationship with her partner.
The jury has previously heard that after allegedly strangling Miss Derkacz, Sexton immediately contacted two prostitutes before taking her car to visit one. Prosecutors said his "first thought after the point of death was to try and find prostitutes", adding: "It may be that the act of killing her had raised arousal."
The trial, expected to last several weeks, continues before Winchester Crown Court. Sexton, a father-of-one, denies all charges.
