News Story

Family `didn´t accept´ man stabbed with scissors died by suicide, court told

Police initially believed that there were no suspicious circumstances when Osaretin Oronsaye, 62, was found dead at his flat in Dartford in July 2025.

The family of a man who was stabbed in the neck with scissors were told he had died by suicide but they “didn’t accept it”, a court has heard.

Police initially believed that there were no suspicious circumstances when Osaretin Oronsaye, 62, was found dead at his flat in Dartford, Kent, on July 5 2025.

Two weeks later, handyman Dorin Ciorba, 29, of Barking, east London, was charged with murder after a post-mortem examination showed Mr Oronsaye was stabbed in the jugular and strangled with cable ties.

At Maidstone Crown Court on Wednesday, his family told the court they searched for his belongings after being told Mr Oronsaye had died by suicide.

They could not find his keys, wallet or phone, all of which were later found at Ciorba’s flat during a police search, the court heard.

Ciorba, who is also charged with robbery, used Mr Oronsaye’s bank cards repeatedly before he was arrested on July 17.

Mr Oronsaye’s wife Oghomwen Ogebor found her husband at around 6pm on July 5 in a pool of blood covered by a duvet in their en-suite bathroom.

Ms Ogebor told the court that she ran out of the flat screaming and shouting for help, thinking her husband had been injured.

On Wednesday morning, she said: “After everything the coroner told us that my husband committed suicide, if he committed suicide you’re supposed to see the phone, the wallet and the keys.”

Dominic Connolly, prosecuting, asked: “Someone told you that evening that it was thought that your husband committed suicide?”

“Yes,” replied Ms Ogebor.

Mr Oronsaye’s half-brother Martins Oronsaye told jurors that police told him he had either “slipped” or taken his own life.

Mr Connolly asked: “You didn’t accept the suggestion that your brother had committed suicide and so you decided to look for his possessions?”

“Yes,” replied Mr Oronsaye.

He added: “I was suspecting that not what they’d told me had happened to him, and it was something different.”

The police called him five days later, telling him they were now treating his half-brother’s death as an unlawful killing, the court heard.

Prior to his death, Mr Oronsaye had been in a dispute with Ciorba over payment for some work done on his flat in April and May 2025.

Mr Oronsaye was suing Ciorba for just over £2,000, and the defendant received an email about the court case the day before the attack, the prosecution said.

CCTV shown in court on Tuesday showed Ciorba cycling to Mr Oronsaye’s home in the afternoon of July 5, before being seen cycling away in a different outfit half an hour later.

Ciorba’s defence is that Mr Oronsaye propositioned him for sex to repay his debt when he came to the flat and that he shoved him to the floor where he hit his head on a radiator but did not attack him further, the court heard.

The handyman also claims that Mr Oronsaye, who owned a window cleaning business, was involved in selling Class A drugs.

Mr Oronsaye’s wife and half-brother said that he was not homosexual, or involved in selling drugs, but did tell jurors that he had an affair with a woman in Nigeria and had two young children there.

He had filed for divorce from Ms Ogebor earlier in 2025.