Daughter of murdered mum left to foot £85,000 repair bill

A woman whose stepdad murdered her mother before torching her home faces an £85,000 repair bill after insurers refused to cover the full cost.

Annabella Bell described as “heartless” an insurance company’s refusal to shell out for the arson damage which happened after her tragic mum Chloe was stabbed to death by ex-husband Argyrios Siakos, 69.

Siokos who believed his wife and daughter were plotting to assassinate him then burned down his ex-wife’s home despite him being banned from entering her converted flat.

Now insurers claim the gutted building was not insured.

Cova Insurance, which provides cover for Saga, described the murder-suicide as a “dreadful tragedy” and made a partial climb-down offering to pay for half of the damage.

But last night, Mrs Bell said: “This is just a slap in the face. They are saying my mentally ill stepfather burning down the flat was a ‘malicious act’. But in refusing to pay up, they are effectively saying my innocent mother was somehow responsible.”

The Sunday Post revealed last week Annabella’s claim that Mrs Siokos’s life could have been saved if the authorities had spotted her husband was becoming dangerously paranoid and delusional.

As far back as 2008, Siokos, who was originally from Athens in Greece, had been acting on the crazed belief his wife and daughter were going to hire a hitman to kill him.

His increasingly delusional behaviour was spelled out in a letter the details of which can be published today for the first time in which he accuses his estranged wife’s family of plotting to kill him.

The chilling letter to “the appropriate authorities” refers to “professional assassins” known to Mrs Siokos’s late brother Zaharias Ktorides, who has since died.

It reads: “The plot for my murder is in collaboration with Annabella (Bell) and Mrs Chloe Siokos, my wife that (sic) hates and despises me.

“The reason being the fact I have divided our house into two self-contained flats because I overheard Mr Zaharias Ktorides saying that: ‘We pay some people I know that kill for money to put him to death.’”

Siokos said in the signed letter he mentioned the plot to his solicitor. Chloe, 80, also told her family GP about her husband’s violence and increasingly delusional behaviour but nothing was done.

But as Chloe was going to bed on January 22, 2013, Siokos let himself into her flat and murdered her by hitting her with a hammer and slitting her throat.

Only later did he douse the flat in petrol and set it on fire. He then hanged himself. Since the murder, which happened in Finchley, North London, Mrs Bell has been struggling to put her parents’ affairs in order.

The cost of the damage to the home is estimated to be between £150,000 and £175,000 and the building has now become “derelict”, she said.

Mrs Bell, a mental health practitioner, said: “You would think that, after such a tragedy, the insurers would show more compassion. They are just being heartless.”

Adrian Furness, claims director of Cova Insurance offered the company’s sincere condolences to Mrs Bell and offered to cover 50% of the outstanding repair costs.

He said: “As the circumstances of the case emerged it became apparent that a strict interpretation of the policy terms would have meant that the property damage would not have been covered.

“Clearly though this is a special case and Mrs Siokos was an innocent victim in every sense.”