Handymen 'raped and burned mum alive due to depraved sexual lust and greed before taking selfie'

Two handymen raped and murdered a woman then burned her alive and taking a grinning selfie because of "depraved sexual lust and greed", a court was told.

Stephen Unwin and William McFall are accused of killing Quyen Ngoc Nguyen, whose body was found in a burning car in Shiney Row, Wearside, in August last year.

Unwin, 39, of St Oswald's Terrace, Houghton-le-Spring, and McFall, 50, of Waterloo Road, Blackpool, deny the murder and rape of the 29-year-old at Newcastle Crown Court.

The court was told that Nguyen, also known as Anna, from Killingworth, was "just alive" at the time her car was set alight on the dirt track she was found.

It is alleged the defendants discussed raping the nail technician in disgusing social media messages to each other in the three weeks before she was killed.

McFall allegedly messaged Unwin asking: "Are we raping the ch***?" in reference to the fact Nguyen was Vietnamese and came to the UK to run a nail salon in Gateshead.

The mother-of-two was allegedly killed after a five-hour ordeal at Unwin's home where she was raped and then forced her to hand over PIN numbers to her bank cards.

It is alleged that a total of £1,000 was withdrawn using her two bank cards, before and after her death.

Jamie Hill QC, prosecuting, said according to BBC News: "We anticipate they will seek to blame one another for causing Miss Nguyen's death.

"It is our case that they share joint responsibility for a murder that was motivated by a depraved sexual lust and financial greed."

The defendants were allegedly caught on CCTV leaving Unwin's home with prosecutors saying her body was wrapped in a white sheet, before being bundled in her black Audi A4.

The jury was told that it was then that she was driven to a dirt track where she, and the car, was doused in petrol and set ablaze.

Hill told the court: "They took a selfie of themselves in the car. McFall is holding the phone and smiling into the phone as they are driving along."

It was revealed in court that Nguyen secretly rented flats to people who did not have the necessary immigration documents to live and work in the UK.

The jury was told that police found that some of the properties she rented were used for growing cannabis and that the two defendants repaired the properties once the cannabis had been harvested.

The court was told the pair actually robbed some of the drugs for themselves, reported the Daily Mail.

Unwin and McFall blamed each other for the rape and killing of Nguyen.