Murderer jailed for 26 years after bludgeoning betting shop owner to death with hammer

 
Brutal killing: Shafique Ahmad Aarij murdered Andrew Iacovou in May last year
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A robber who murdered a betting shop manager by hitting him repeatedly with a claw hammer has been jailed for 26 years.

Shafique Ahmad Aarij, 21, hit 55-year-old father-of-two Andrew Iacovou nine times as he robbed the Morden branch of Ladbrokes in south London.

Aarij, a regular customer at the bookies, walked off with just £296.68 after bludgeoning Mr Iacovou to death in May last year.

About 90 minutes after the brutal attack, he wired £271 of his loot to Pakistan.

Police tracked him down five days later after watching CCTV footage of the attack and of blood-spattered Aarij leaving the shop.

They also recovered a knife from the scene which was covered in the killer's fingerprints.

He denied murder but during the trial admitted he had robbed the shop, hit Mr Iacovou and ran out when an alarm went off.

In a statement read to the court, Mr Iacovou's wife Anita described how "every aspect" of her life had been affected by her husband's death.

Killer: CCTV footage showed a blood-spattered Aarij leaving the bookies (Picture: Metropolitan Police)

She said that Andrew, who had acted as her carer for a "crippling illness", was a "good man" who she planned to be with "forever".

She said: "I don't know if I've moved forward at all since Andrew went, it's as if I make a little progress one day and then the next I fall back again.

"Every step is so difficult and what happened to Andrew is never far from my thoughts.

"Every aspect of my life has been affected because everything I have and do is affected by the loss of Andrew.

"I worry about [Aarij] getting out and that he might find my family, I know it's irrational but I can't help it."

Detective Sergeant Eric Sword, who led the investigation, said: "This was an incredibly violent and unprovoked attack on a hard-working father-of-two - the level of violence was completely disproportionate to what the suspect sought to achieve which was robbing the shop.

"It is only right that Aarij will now serve many years behind bars."

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