The sister of a film director discovered dead in her Camden flat today appeared in court charged with her murder.
Jennifer Abbott, 69, was found in her north London home on June 13 wrapped in a blanket with tape over her mouth after not being seen for days.
This morning her sister Nancy Pexton, 69, of Westminster, appeared at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court, flanked by two dock officers.
Wearing a grey prison tracksuit, she looked dishevelled and bewildered as she was asked to confirm her personal details.
She repeated her name and date of birth very softly. Asked to confirm her address, she murmured: ‘Nowhere, at the moment.’
Her solicitor told the court she had no fixed address.
Deputy District Judge Lee Marklew told her: ‘You’ve seen your advisor this morning. You will be before the crown court on Tuesday next week. You will meet you barrister than and receive more advice over the coming days. You need to bide your time. This is an administrative hearing.’
Earlier, the judge was told that Ms Pexton was ‘very vulnerable’, and her solicitor asked if she could be allowed to sit down during the hearing.
Officers from the Met Police had been called by the London Ambulance Service to a report of an unresponsive woman in a flat in Mornington Place.
Ms Abbott, who was professionally known as Sarah Steinberg, was found wrapped in a blanket with tape over her mouth, neighbours claimed
The award-winning director was last seen by neighbours walking her beloved corgi Prince, who was described as ‘her life’.
Prince was found locked in the bathroom after being on its own for up to three days but survived.
A post-mortem examination gave Ms Abbott’s cause of death as sharp force trauma.
Neighbours said they regularly saw her walking her pet corgi in the area with one describing her as ‘exuberant’ and ‘vivacious’.
Her next door neighbour Laura, 34, said: ‘She was a movie star. She was in a couple of movies. She used to live in Beverly Hills.
‘I live right next door to her. She was a friend of mine. I used to walk her dog when she was sick.’
Another Neighbour Billie Currie, 63, said: ‘She was always walking the dog and was really nice. She was quite reserved but very friendly.
A friend had told how Ms Abbott had been in Hollywood earlier in her career where she directed the movie War of the Gods.
‘She got interviewed in LA about this movie,’ she said.
‘She was known as Jenny or Janet and was quite mysterious.’
Scotland Yard previously said officers were investigating whether Ms Abbott’s death was linked to a diamond-encrusted Rolex missing from her home.
Ms Pexton appears in a photographs on the Facebook page of Ms Abbott.
In one snap of them sitting hand-in-hand at a restaurant table, Ms Abbott wrote: ‘Me and sis Nanc having fun’.
In another of them embracing on the gangplank of a small sea plane, she wrote: ‘Sea plane ride with my sister in beautiful Vancouver. What a beautiful flight.’
Other pictures show Ms Abbott rubbing shoulders with stars including Dan Ackroyd, Paris Hilton and Kate Hudson.
Ms Abbott, known professionally as Sarah Steinberg, won an award at the Swansea Bay Film Festival for her 2010 documentary War of the Gods, which explored the idea that religion has been manipulated by politicians to justify violence.
She also directed a 2004 horror film called Temple of Fear about a woman who has a deadly premonition and attempts to stop it from happening, and owned a company called Atlantis Rising Production.
She did not enter a plea and was remanded in custody ahead of her Old Bailey court appearance next week.
