Posted on 05/07/2002 5:43:36 PM PDT by dighton
A DIVORCEE claimed yesterday that she had "no choice" but to kill her wealthy lover who had seduced her into a world of depraved sex.
Janet Charlton, 36, rained 20 blows down on the head, neck and shoulders of Daniel O'Brien with a double-handed axe, Leeds Crown Court has been told.
She denies murdering Mr O'Brien, 41, a businessman, during an afternoon sex session at his home, on the grounds of self defence and provocation.
Asked by her counsel, Robert Smith QC, why she had killed him, Charlton replied: "I had no choice, there was no way that my daughter was going to be harmed in any way or killed and no way that I was either. I had no choice."
She and her three-year-old daughter, Amy, moved in with Mr O'Brien at his home in Midgley, near Wakefield, West Yorks, within a month of meeting him.
He had contacted her after she joined an internet escort agency to earn money after the break-up of her marriage.
Charlton, a former telesales manager, had sex with three of her four previous clients and was paid £50 an hour for her services.
Charlton, who sold her home in Golcar, near Huddersfield, to be with Mr O'Brien, said: "I had never been with anyone before who had wanted to be with me so much.
"Initially it was a fantastic feeling. It was nice to feel I had someone who was besotted with me and made me feel really special."
She told the court that problems arose through his possessiveness towards her and particularly about the way the house was kept and his food was served.
On one occasion, she said, he threw a plate at her because she had served him ham and scrambled egg on the same plate. Charlton claimed he also hit her because she had produced only meat and bread on New Year's Eve.
But she said it was his appetite for bizarre sex, which including making her have sex with other men, that put a strain on the relationship two months after it began.
Charlton broke down in tears in the witness box as she related an incident at a sex club.
She said: "He thought we needed a good night out and if I would go to the club it proved I wanted to make him happy. We went into one of the rooms and a lot of men had sex with me. He was directing the men that were there.
"It was awful, it was just like I was a piece of meat. I was cross with myself for going in the first place. I couldn't believe I had been so stupid. I said I would never go again and I never did."
The prosecution has claimed that Charlton murdered Mr O'Brien in May last year because he was about to end their relationship.
Mr O'Brien was found face-down on the floor, blindfolded, with plastic handcuffs on each wrist, gagged by a rubber ball attached to a leather collar around his neck.
The axe was embedded in his skull, with a black and silver leopardskin-effect suspender belt draped over it and a pair of white, fishnet stockings.
A leather bullwhip was on the bed nearby and a pathologist found whip marks on his back.
The trial continues.
Thank you. Evidently I am well E-QUIPPED!
Could this be a "double-headed" axe? I suspect the jounalist is not a woodsman.
I suppose the phrase "double-headed" will start a whole new round of double-entendre on this thread.
AB
What a coincidence - that's just how I want to be remembered, too...
Too funny general!
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