A British pensioner’s dream retirement in a tiny French hamlet ended in her brutal murder after a psychotic neighbour brutally strangled and beat her to death, a court has heard.
Susan Higginbotham, 67, was found dead in September 2021 at her home in Esclottes, a village of just 150 people around 35 miles east of Bordeaux.
She had been attacked by her psychotic neighbour, Hichame Bahloul, who has now been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The Lot-et-Garonne Assize Court heard that Higginbotham had been asking 42-year-old Bahloul for some sticking tape before he exploded and attacked her.
He told the court that he went over to her house on the day of the attack with some ‘cord’ which he used to strangle her, before punching and kicking her in the chest.
Susan Higginbotham, 67, was found dead in September 2021 at her home in Esclottes, a village of just 150 people around 35 miles east of Bordeaux
Before the attack, Bahloul had spent almost half his life in psychiatric care.
But at the time, he had been back living with his parents in the same south-western village of Esclottes for six months.
The three-day trial worked to understand why Bahloul had carried out the attack.
‘Is this a crime of interest? Of substitution? Of opportunity?’ the prosecutor asked.
‘The need to attack others has been part of his life for years. He attacked many people during his various hospitalisations: patients or nursing staff.
‘He took pleasure in it,’ the prosecutor added.
As he listened to the prosecutor from a plexiglass cell inside the courtroom, Bahloul gasped before getting up and banging on the window with his fists, reports said.
However, Bahloul himself admitted to attacking Ms Higginbotham.
‘The story of the tape? It was a pretext to go to her house. I returned to her house with my cord and I strangled her,’ he said, according to reports in France.
‘We fell, the rope fell. It broke. I took my fists and punched her in the face and kicked her in the chest to make sure she was dead.’
Ms Higginbotham was found by an acquaintance who went to check on her on the morning of September 14, 2021.
She was found lifeless in her house in Esclottes, on the border of the departments of Lot-et-Garonne and Gironde.
After initial clues pointed to her death involving a third party, a large emergency response was launched by French police in the normally peaceful region.
Within a few hours, Bahloul was identified as a suspect. He was arrested on September 15, 2021 at 7.55pm, the court was told.
An investigating officer said: ‘We carried out a first search, then the suspect leads investigators into the village, about a hundred meters from Susan Higginbotham’s house, where he hid the victim’s pink wallet.
‘He gives us the clothes he wore on the day of the incident, covered in blood.’
The Lot-et-Garonne Assize Court (pictured) heard that Ms Higginbotham had been asking 42-year-old Bahloul for some sticking tape before he exploded and attacked her
During the trial, Bahloul said he attacked the British woman over his annoyance that she had asked him repeatedly for the sticking tape.
The investigator said: ‘He goes to her house, strangles her, releases her. He returns home, takes a piece of cord from the garden, which he cuts with a knife, but does not take the weapon, for fear that she will scream.
‘Susan Higginbotham would not have seen her attacker come back a second time, put the link around her neck, before falling to the ground.’
The investigator continued: ‘He said he knelt on her while she was on the ground, and punched and kicked her – more than fifteen times – while attacking her head.
‘Then [he] put [his] hand over his nose and mouth. He told us that if she had still been breathing, he would have finished her,’ they added.
According to reports in France, Bahloul’s own defence lawyer Mr Verdier requested that his client be given the maximum sentence.
‘I am here to defend the wishes of my client,’ Verdier said. ‘The latter coincides with the report of the expert psychologist: it is necessary for him to remain in prison.
‘That is why I ask for the maximum penalty incurred.’
Reports suggest that Bahloul was not happy being back with his family and that he carried out the attack as a means to escape his life at home.
The court also heard from a woman named Sharon – a friend of Ms Higginbotham’s – who travelled from the UK in order to give details of the victim’s character.
Pictured: A view of Esclottes in south-west France where Ms Higginbotham was killed in 2021
Sharon said she hosted her friend for six months in her London apartment in the 2000s, longer than the four weeks they had initially planned for.
‘As soon as we met, we became very good friends. By 2005, she had moved to Mansfield, and a few years later, it was me,’ Sharon said.
‘Sue was a very pleasant person, she took care of people a lot, was very open. We had a memorable vacation together. She had had a successful career, as a financial director, then as a company representative; she had worked very hard.’
She added: ‘She really wanted to be happy in France when she moved in 2016, and I think she was. She was living her dream. She was funny. I miss her a lot.’