A woman has gone on trial accused of murdering her banker boyfriend, after allegedly stabbing him to death and leaving his body to decompose in their bedroom for up to nine days. Joanna Cierpka, 51, denies murder but has admitted the lesser charge of manslaughter over the death of 52-year-old Henrik Slotsaa, with prosecutors arguing this plea does not adequately reflect her responsibility. The case turns on Cierpka's mental state at the time of the killing, which the court heard followed Slotsaa telling her he had "met someone else" at work.

Police found Slotsaa's partially decomposed body at the couple's flat in Elephant and Castle, south London, on 15 March, after officers broke down the door during a welfare check prompted by an email Cierpka had sent to family and friends threatening suicide. She was found with a self-inflicted cut to her elbow and later told hospital staff she had killed her partner. Pathologists identified 14 separate "sharp force injuries", including wounds to the backs of both knees that prosecutors suggested may have represented an attempt at dismemberment. The trial heard Slotsaa, a Citibank employee, had grown close to a female colleague, Aimee O'Shaughnessy, in the months before his death, while Cierpka had been struggling after being made redundant from her marketing job.