My mum's killer can rot in jail
Janette May Grocutt was brutally attacked in 2007 while bedridden husband Douglas lay helpless in a nearby room in their home at Pinosa, near Alicante, south-east Spain.
Timothy Geert Knocaert was yesterday sentenced to 38 years in prison for the callous crime that shocked the Costa Blanca in November 2007.
Speaking exclusively to the Western Morning News, Mrs Grocutt's son Stephen said the entire family was still trying to come to terms with the senseless attack that had forever scarred their lives.
"He (Knocaert) is filthy, evil and should rot away in a dark hole for a very very long time," said an emotional Stephen Grocutt.
He was speaking just hours after a Spanish court agreed a sentencing arrangement between prosecuting and defence attorneys.
The Grocutts moved from their home in St Austell, Cornwall, six years ago to start a new life just inland from the popular holiday coastline.
But their new-found paradise was shattered by the tragic events of November 7 last year.
Knocaert was yesterday sentenced to 21 years for murder, 14 years for sexual aggression and three years for robbery during an agreed settlement in an Alicante courtroom. All sentences are to run consecutively.
The 21-year-old Belgian has also been ordered to pay g35,000 to the family of his 72-year-old victim – a sum Stephen Grocutt said the family would "never see".
The court was told that Knocaert, who was 19 years old at the time of the attack, had visited the Grocutts a number of times after he had befriended them.
On the night of the rape and murder, Knocaert had telephoned the couple at their home at Pinosa in the early hours, before arriving on the doorstep and asking to stay the night.
Once inside, Knocaert produced a kitchen knife and forced Mrs Grocutt into a bedroom.
There, he repeatedly stabbed the pensioner, pushed her on to a bed and raped her before stabbing her again several times. Mrs Grocutt bled to death.
As she lay dying, Knocaert approached 74-year-old Douglas Grocutt as he sat helpless in the nearby bedroom, overhearing every detail of the horrifying attack on his wife.
He then stole g500 – then worth nearly £400 – in cash, two credit cards and two mobile telephones before fleeing the house.
Mrs Grocutt's body was found by a neighbour in a pool of blood 17 hours later.
Devastated by the attack, Douglas Grocutt died in a Spanish care home less than two weeks later.
Knocaert was sentenced after an agreement was reached between attorneys and a panel of three judges sitting at the Palace of Justice in the capital of the Costa Blanca.
Paying tribute to his mother, Stephen Grocutt said: "This is a great loss to my family and I.
"Janette was happy and enjoying her retirement in Spain. She was a great mum and she loved her family.
"We miss her very much."
