Inquest opens into mother with ‘heart full of love’ killed on school run
An inquest has opened into a woman who was stabbed to death by her estranged husband while she held their three-year-old daughter’s hand. Aliny Dias Mendes Godinho was doing the school run in February 2019 in Epsom when she was confronted by the possessive Ricardo Godinho, who had followed her bus and been lying in wait armed with a knife. When he saw Aliny and their youngest child get off the bus on London Road, he drove out of Nonsuch Road car park and mounted the grass verge where they were walking.
: Surrey Police makes several changes to practices after IOPC probe into murder of Aliny Godinho Other mothers heard a scream and looked on in horror as he launched at her with the knife. He stabbed her multiple times in an attack lasting 17 seconds, before making off in his pickup truck, leaving his daughter to watch her mother lie dying on the ground.
Then he went to work and told his secretary he had stabbed his wife. Aliny had reported her husband’s controlling behaviour a few weeks earlier, a month after ending their relationship, telling Surrey Police: “I have dreams he is trying to kill me”.
Where to get help if you’re in an abusive relationship
Your Sanctuary
Your Sanctuary offers confidential emotional support and advice to anyone affected by domestic abuse. Phone: 01483 776822 (9am-9pm)
Visit the Your Sanctuary website
The National Domestic Violence Helpline
The 24 hour National Domestic Violence Helpline, run in partnership between Women’s Aid and Refuge is for women experiencing domestic violence, their family, friends and others calling on their behalf. Phone: 0808 2000 247 Visit the National Domestic Violence Helpline website
Refuge
Refuge provides safe, emergency accommodation and emotional and practical support to women and children experiencing domestic violence.
Women’s Aid
Women’s Aid provides practical support and information for women experiencing domestic violence via the Survivor’s Handbook and local domestic violence services. Visit the Women’s Aid website
Men’s Advice Line
Men’s Advice Line offers confidential advice for men experiencing domestic violence from a partner or ex-partner. Phone: 0808 801 0327 (weekdays 9am-5pm)
Visit the Men’s Advice Line website
The ManKind Initiative
The ManKind Initiative provides confidential help and support for male victims of domestic abuse and domestic violence. Phone: 01823 334244 (Mon-Fri 10am-4pm) Visit the ManKind Initiative website
National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Domestic Violence helpline
National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Domestic Violence helpline run by Galop, provides support to LGBT people suffering domestic abuse.
Phone: 0800 999 5428 Visit the galop website
Respect Phoneline
Respect Phoneline offers confidential advice and support to help domestic violence perpetrators stop being violent and abusive to their partners or ex-partners. Phone: 0808 802 4040
Visit the Respect Phoneline website
Victim Support
Victim Support provides emotional and practical help to victims or witnesses of any crime, whether or not it has been reported to the police. Phone: 0808 16 89 111 (24/7) Visit the Victim Support website
Killer refused to attend inquest
Godinho, who is now serving a minimum jail term of 27 years, did not dial in to Surrey Coroner’s Court for the first day of the inquest yesterday (January 17).
Court waited for a video link to be set up at Woodhill, a high security prison in Milton Keynes, only for an officer to appear and say Godinho refused to attend. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), who investigated the circumstances surrounding Aliny’s death, had a representative present at court but said the IOPC was not taking an active role in the inquest. Throughout their 17 years together Aliny said she had tried to leave Ricardo many times, but he would threaten to kill her, or himself.
They argued “all the time”, mainly because he was angered by their children making noise. Two days after Christmas Day in 2018, she made the decision to approach police because of his threats to take the children away from her, to her native Brazil.
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PC Joel Robinson was a response officer on duty at Epsom town hall when Aliny, 39, reached out. The next day, he arrested Godinho outside Aliny’s friend’s house where she had gone to get away from him, but he had found out the address.
Godinho told Aliny’s friend that when he had reported his wife and children missing, the police had given him their location, the inquest heard. He turned up there that morning, causing PC Robinson to blue-light it from Epsom to Tadworth, where he was already in handcuffs outside the house. PC Robinson said in a statement it was highly unlikely the police had disclosed Aliny’s location and he had possibly tracked her phone.
At the time of her death she was staying in emergency accommodation at a Streatham address that Godinho had stored in his phone after accessing her iCloud account, Detective Superintendent Mark Chapman told the coroner.
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Changed your mind? There’s an ‘unsubscribe’ button at the bottom of every newsletter we send out. PC Robinson told the court he was not aware the domestic abuse risk assessment he had completed on Aliny the previous day had not gone through in the system until he got back into work on the early shift.
On realising it had not uploaded, he submitted the assessment, which classified risk to the victim as high. He arrested Godinho, who was released on police bail, on suspicion of coercive and controlling behaviour, threats to kill, and also criminal damage after Aliny produced shredded material she said was their children’s passports. A few years earlier he had also destroyed her passport – and tried to strangle her – when she said she was leaving him, the court heard.
That was the only time he had been physically violent with her, before the fatal stabbing.
CCTV captured Aliny Godinho’s last movements walking with her daughter (Image: Surrey Police)
‘She was an angel who passed through our lives’
In a statement to the coroner, Tatiana Mendes described her sister Aliny as “a spectacular person, with a heart full of love to give to everyone around her”. “She was an angel who passed through our lives,” she said. “Many people didn’t understand how she was able to do everything with so much magic.”
She cared for her four children, including a stepson, “as if they were great precious stones”. She said it was hard to resist the flavour of any food that passed through Aliny’s hands, and “love was the secret ingredient”. Aliny had worked for a stint making pastries for events from their home but her husband, who she relied on for money, had put them in the bin.
“He told me to stop because I was good for nothing and I only caused him financial loss,” she said in her statement to police in December 2018. Godinho had a property maintenance company in Epsom, which one year later was struck off the Companies House Register. She told police that at first she had helped him at work, but stopped because she was afraid of doing something wrong.
“He told our 12-year-old son that I had destroyed his company and we would lose everything,” she said. Before making Surrey their home in 2013, they had opened a coffee shop together in Brazil. He had spied on her by watching the CCTV and when she sold something on credit she said he would appear and smash up the tables.
Once, he had driven the car in front of oncoming traffic while she screamed. She told Surrey Police it was common for men to kill their wives in Brazil. Godinho, who the coroner heard was a regular cannabis user but had not been in trouble with police before, pleaded not guilty to murder claiming he had not intended to kill his wife.
A jury at Guildford Crown Court disagreed and in July 2019 convicted Godinho, who is 44 this month. The jury heard Aliny had no defensive wounds because his attack was so ferocious she’d had no time to defend herself. When sentencing him to life in prison, Mrs Justice Thornton told Godinho: “She tried to run away but she couldn’t run fast because she was holding your daughter’s hand.
“Whilst your callous attack showed the worst of humanity, they and other eyewitnesses showed the best of humanity”, as other mothers tried to shield the toddler from seeing her wounded mum.
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