Gardener jailed for 14 years after disembowelling lover with African spear after row about sex

Court hears Eugenio Felipe Reicha killed British ex-pat Simon Carley-Pocock in a drug-fuelled rage, then showed mobile phone pictures of the dead accountant’s body to a friend

Simon Carley-Pocock was killed in his home near the picturesque Portuguese tourist village of Alcoutim (Concierge.2C via Wikimedia Commons)

A gardener who disembowelled his lover with a spear after a row about sex has been jailed for 14 years.

A Portuguese court heard that Eugenio Felipe Reicha used an African spear to attack British ex-pat Simon Carley-Pocock after flying into a drug-fuelled rage when the English accountant demanded more sex.

Reicha is then said to have used his phone to take pictures of the dead body, later showing them to a friend, who told the court: “He showed me photographs of a man in bed, with his intestines hanging out, and said he had killed him.”

The court heard that Reicha, 21, and Mr Carley-Pocock, 58, formerly of Welwyn Garden City, Herts, had met during a night out in April last year, before going back to the British man’s hilltop home in the tiny Algarve hamlet of Monte da Vinha, near the picturesque tourist village of Alcoutim.

It is believed that Mr Carley-Pocock was killed on 3 April, but that his body, which had stab wounds to the abdomen, chest and neck, lay undiscovered for two days.

It was found after Reicha happened to be stopped by police for a minor traffic offence in the early hours of 5 April, while driving Mr Carley-Pocock’s expensive Audi 4 convertible.

The court heard Reicha, who had been brought up in institutions and nicknamed Fantasma (Ghost), initially claimed he had borrowed the car. Suspecting he had stolen it, however, Portuguese police went to the home of the owner.

Reicha, the court heard, eventually confessed to police that he had killed the ex-pat.

It was reported that he told detectives he had a bath and some food at Mr Carley-Pocock’s home, then drove away in the Audi, throwing the African spear out of the car window somewhere along the way.

​Reicha was arrested in possession of a small knife, but the spear has never been found.

Reicha, who refused to testify during the trial in the Portuguese city of Faro, was found guilty of homicide, and also convicted of stealing £17,000 of goods from Mr Carley-Pocock’s home. The trial heard that his friend had seen him in possession of a TV and two bloodstained cameras which he had later tried to sell.

It is believed that Mr Carley-Pocock had given up his accountancy job and left Britain for Portugal several years ago, after being diagnosed with a serious illness.