The Greek chopper pilot, who for six weeks played the grieving widow after smothering his Brit wife to death, has appealed for more time to prepare his case as he begun his shameless bid to overturn a life sentence.
Babis Anagnostopoulos, aged 35, told appeals court judges in Athens on Monday that his lawyer had “fallen sick and is in hospital and cannot represent me” before requesting that the case be adjourned. A new hearing was set for May 8th.
The unexpected turn of events – it was the third time the trial has been postponed- was met with guffaws in the court room where the pilot was escorted by uncuffed and unmasked.
The lawyer, Alexandros Papaioannidis, had told reporters only late Sunday that he and his client were ready to take the stand. “We are prepared for a trial that we know will last several weeks,” he said. “We are expecting prosecution witnesses to be called first and we are ready.”
Anagnostopoulos is serving a 27-year sentence for the murder of Caroline Crouch who was brutally suffocated to death while she lay asleep next to her infant daughter, Lydia, on May 11, 2021.
The pilot, described as narcissistic and manipulative by psychologists who gave expert testimony in his first trial last year, also killed the family’s pet dog, Roxy, to make the crime look as if it had been the work of ruthless robbers.
The puppy was found by police hanging from the bannister of the couple’s maisonette in the upscale Athens suburb of Glyka Nera.
Under a new law he was handed an 11-month prison term for killing the husky in addition to life for the cold-blooded murder of his wife.
A first year student at the university of Piraeus, 19-year-old Caroline was discovered by police sprawled across the couple’s bed, bruised, battered and lying next to Lydia.
The pilot, who had alerted them, was found at the foot of the bed, his hands and feet covered with duct tape.
"When the accused was untied he sat on the bed and started to touch the woman ... he prodded her and asked 'honey are you ok?” one of the officers told judges during his trial last year.
“He seemed to be in shock but was also incredibly calm. He asked me to hand him the child to hug.”
A coroner subsequently ruled the Brit student had endured "an agonising and prolonged" death with suffocation requiring more than five minutes.
Police only began to suspect the UK-trained aviator when other leads produced dead ends and new evidence provided by Caroline's smart watch began to show that his own version of events was riddled with inconsistencies.
Anagnostopoulos eventually confessed to the crime during the course of an eight hour long interrogation almost six weeks later.
As one of Greece’s most infamous inmates the pilot has been imprisoned with hundreds of other hardened criminals in Malandrinos, a top security jail.
The wife killer, who is studying law, is believed to have spent months preparing for the appeals court hearing.
On Monday he told judges that he planned to sit exams to enter university and hoped the forthcoming appeals trial didn’t conflict with them. Papaioannidis has repeatedly said he will try to have his client’s sentence reduced by proving the murder was not premeditated.
“What happened, happened in the heat of the moment. It was not premeditated and what we will argue is that mitigating circumstances should now be taken into account,” the lawyer told the Mirror.
“Babis works in the prison canteen, he reads,” he said. "His behaviour is exemplary."
Last week, Caroline’s Liverpool-born dad, David, called his former son-in-law “a monster” who he hoped would rot in hell. “I wish the death penalty still existed in Greece,” he told local Mega TV saying his priority in life was to raise Lydia as his daughter would have done.
The little girl, who turns three this year, is being raised in Manila with her Filipino-born grandmother, Susana, and Caroline’s adored half-sister, one of the country's leading artists.
The Crouch family, who had raised Caroline on the island of Alonissos, where she is buried, recently put their three-story villa on the market, saying they were leaving Greece. Caroline’s remains are also expected to be exhumed this year and transferred to the Philippines.
“The poor child, naturally, is still unaware that she has to grow up without a mother and father because of the terrible actions of her natural father,” David said, explaining he will join soon join Susana and Lydia in Manila.
“I am determined that the monster who killed her mother, as well as those two ridiculous people who are his parents, will never see my granddaughter again.”
Last month in a separate judicial procedure, a Greek court awarded the Crouch family
exclusive custody of Lydia after it was suspected that her Greek grandparents were covertly using their time with her to put their imprisoned son in touch with his daughter.
The court ruled that Anagnostopoulos’ parents could have one hour of access to her “via Skype or other electronic means” per week but no more.
“Soon even that will vanish because his parents don’t speak English and the little girl will forget Greek,” said a family friend on Alonissos reacting to the news.
