🔴 EX-HOCKEY STAR JAILED FOR MURDERING WIFE IN DROITWICH
Ex-hockey coach Mohamed Samak jailed for life for murdering wife Joanne at their Droitwich home — just hours before she was due to start a new job. Former Egypt international hockey player Mohamed Samak has been jailed for life for murdering his wife Joanne at their family home in Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire. The 43-year-old, who played for his country before moving to Britain to work as a coach, was convicted following a retrial at Worcester Crown Court after jurors rejected his claim that his wife had stabbed herself. He will serve a minimum term of 19 years and 247 days before he can be considered for parole.
During the retrial, Samak maintained that his wife had taken her own life, telling jurors she returned home late that night holding a knife before stabbing herself repeatedly in front of their young son. He insisted he had tried to stop her but was unable to intervene in time, describing how she “moved in very quick motions” before collapsing beside the bed.
The prosecution rejected his account, arguing that Samak murdered his wife following months of marital tension, financial strain & a rekindled relationship with another woman. They said he deliberately delayed calling 999 for over an hour while hiding his bloodstained clothing in the loft — a discovery made only a week before the end of the retrial, more than a year after her death.
Sentencing him on Friday, Judge James Burbidge KC said Samak had spun “a wicked story” in an attempt to escape responsibility for what he had done. “I cannot accept you are remorseful,” the judge told him. “You still deny your accountability.”
Dressed in a black tracksuit, Samak sat shaking his head and muttering throughout the hearing. When asked to stand for sentence, he refused to rise and had to be lifted by security officers, who later removed him from the dock by each arm.
The court heard how the defendant fatally stabbed his 49-year-old wife six times on 1 July 2024 before waiting more than an hour to call 999. He later attempted to convince police and paramedics that Joanne had turned the knife on herself. “My wife’s got a knife in her tummy,” he told the operator, giving the impression that she had self-inflicted the injuries.
Emergency crews arrived to find Mrs Samak dead at the scene. Pathologist Dr Alexander Kolar said one of the six stab wounds had pierced her heart and breastbone, requiring major force. The jury heard that rather than confusion and shock, as the defendant claimed, the delay before calling for help had allowed him to conceal vital evidence linking him to the killing.
When police arrived, Samak maintained that his wife had taken her own life. He was arrested within days and charged with murder. At his first trial earlier this year, the jury was unable to reach a verdict. The retrial began in September, with prosecutors alleging that he had killed his wife amid growing financial and marital pressures. The couple were said to have grown distant, sleeping in separate rooms, and Mrs Samak had discovered messages on his phone showing contact with another woman shortly before her death.
Prosecutors said she had been looking forward to her 50th birthday and a planned trip to Paris, with no sign of suicidal intent. The court was told she had “every reason to live” and had been excited about raising their young son, then five.
After deliberating for only a few hours, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty. Samak wept in the dock as the foreman read the result.
In statements read to the court, Joanne’s family described the devastation her death had caused. Her mother, Penny Vale, said she remained “utterly heartbroken” and had endured “the most harrowing moments” hearing evidence of how her daughter was killed. “She was so excited to be a mum in her 40s,” she said. “Now her precious young son has been deprived of his mummy’s love. When I told him his mummy had died, he said, ‘I’m too young not to have a mummy.’”
Her brother Mark Vale told the court the loss had shattered his family. “Part of me died on that day as well,” he said. “The horror she must have gone through haunts me every day. I feel like I let her down. She must have been terrified.”
The judge said the murder was aggravated by the fact it had taken place in the family home, with the couple’s young child present. He added that Samak’s repeated denials had forced Joanne’s loved ones to endure the trauma of two separate trials.
Following the verdict, the Crown Prosecution Service praised the family’s “dignity and strength” in facing Samak’s “calculated attempts to disguise murder as suicide”.
Samak will serve his sentence in a high-security prison. He remains adamant that he did not inflict the wounds, but the judge told him plainly that the evidence proved otherwise.
The killing, carried out behind closed doors in what appeared to be an ordinary family home, was described by prosecutors as a moment of “lethal anger” from which there was no recovery.
He will spend at least the next two decades behind bars before he can be considered for release — convicted of murdering his wife in front of their young child.
