A couple have been found guilty of murdering their live-in French nanny and burning her body on a garden bonfire to try and dispose of her remains.

Ouissem Medouni, 40, and Sabrina Kouider, 35, were found guilty on Thursday, May 24 at the Old Bailey of murdering Sophie Lionnet, 21, in their ground floor flat on Wandsworth Park Road, Wandsworth after a three month trial.

At an earlier hearing on Friday, January 12 they had both admitted perverting the course of justice by trying to destroy her body on a bonfire on 20 September 2017.

Medouni was caught after a neighbour alerted the fire brigade after becoming concerned with excessive smoke coming the couple’s garden.

Firefighters arrived to discover Medouni cooking food on a barbecue in an attempt to disguise his real purpose of making the body unrecognisable and had even scattered bits of cooked chicken on top of Sophie's charred body as a cover up.

When asked what he was doing, he claimed he was ‘cooking a sheep’ but firefighters immediately suspected it was human remains, and called the police.

Medouni was arrested within half an hour of police arrival just before 6:30pm and Kouider later that evening.

The pathologist’s findings suggested Miss Lionnet suffered blunt force trauma to the head, neck and chest but the cause of death was unclear due to the burning of her body.

The prosecution case was that Miss Lionnet was victim to obsessive and fantastical accusations over several months by Kouider and Medouni.

The pair subjected naive and trusting nanny from Troyes, France, who cared for their boys aged four and eight for over 18 months, to months of mistreatment, threats and physical abuse that left her broken down and a virtual prisoner.

Medouni, a self-employed businessman and Kouider, a self-styled fashion designer/stylist, will be sentenced on Tuesday, June 26.

Detective Inspector Domenica Catino, of the Met’s Homicide and Major Crime Command, said: "As the investigating officer in this case I am satisfied that the verdict has bought some justice for Sophie but of course it will never bring her back.

"I cannot imagine what thoughts were going through Sophie’s mind whilst being held a prisoner in those 12 days leading up to her death but from the harrowing images obtained it showed a scared, broken and emaciated young girl who probably knew she was shortly facing death.

"This has been an extremely harrowing and tragic case. Both Ouissem Medouni and Sabrina Kouider have robbed Sophie Lionnet, who was only 21, of her promising life and took her from her family and friends, who will never again get to see a beloved daughter, sister and friend.”