Care assistant among trio jailed for gambler's killing

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/28/care-assistant-among-trio-jailed-for-gamblers-killing

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A woman has been jailed for 16 years for setting a trap which led to the “pitiless and wicked” murder of a professional gambler for the sake of his winnings.

Care assistant Leonie Granger, 25, deliberately ensnared 56-year-old Mehmet Hassan in March last year after meeting him in a Mayfair casino. After a trial at the Old Bailey, she was found guilty of Hassan’s manslaughter and false imprisonment, having earlier admitted a plot to rob him.

Her boyfriend, Kyrron Jackson, 28, and his friend, Nicholas Chandler, 29, repeatedly kicked and stamped on Hassan after Granger let them into his home. Afterwards, they left him with multiple broken bones, lying face down in his bedroom drowning in his blood.

The pair were found guilty of his murder and were jailed for life on Tuesday with a minimum term of 36 years. Sentencing, Judge William Kennedy described the attack as “pitiless and wicked”, adding: “It was quite simply an act of brutality which defies reason and comprehension.”

In mitigation, Orlando Pownall QC said Granger had worked with the elderly since she was 18 and had only got involved with the plot because she was in love with Jackson and “fell in with his desires”.

He said she deeply regretted what had happened, adding: “Her head was turned by Mr Jackson who she loved and, to some extent, by Mr Chandler who was persuasive and superficially charming.”

But jailing her, the judge said she had been “deceitful from the outset” and had lost her sense and compassion when she got involved in the scheme. He added that she clearly cared more for Jackson than he cared for her.

The trial had heard how Hassan was oblivious of the sting as he wined and dined the woman he knew as Rachel, even bragging to his friends that he was not paying her to be with him.

After their first date, Granger, of Gillingham in Kent, was overheard by a taxi driver reporting back that Hassan was “flashy” and saying: “This guy is a professional gambler. He has never worked a day in his life.”

On the night of the murder, Hassan had taken Granger to the Mayfair restaurant Nobu before going on to the Palm Beach Casino nearby, where he gave her £1,000 in cash to gamble with.

Granger was spotted by a poker supervisor kissing Hassan “passionately” and she told the pair to “get a room”. Later, he took her back to his flat in Islington, north London, where she made her excuses and left in a taxi – but not before letting in Jackson and Chandler, who were poised to strike outside.

The two men used parcel tape to restrain Hassan in his bedroom then kicked him to death and ransacked his home as they searched for his stash of cash. While Hassan’s body lay undiscovered, the killers were filmed on Granger’s mobile phone throwing wads of 50 notes around.

Granger’s “soft target” was known to have two favourite casinos in Mayfair – the Playboy Casino on Old Park Lane and the Palm Beach Casino in Berkeley Street. He sometimes won as much as 15,000 at a time and rather than using bank accounts, he would keep his winnings around his flat, even keeping thousands of pounds in his microwave.

The fact the divorced father of three “enjoyed the company of women” made him particularly “vulnerable to the unscrupulous”, Crispin Aylett QC, prosecuting, told jurors.

He said Hassan’s death was the “culmination of the ruthless greed” of Jackson and Chandler, who had been involved in two armed robberies at the same casino in South Kensington in January and February last year, but with limited success. The jury was shown CCTV film of the raids as well as clips of Granger and Hassan together in the casino hours before the killing.

They were also played a clip of the three defendants throwing the victim’s money around hours after the murder, with Jackson wearing a gas mask and stuffing a fistful of notes into his underpants.

After viewing the film, Kennedy told the three defendants: “The eloquence with which it speaks about you is deafening.”

All three were convicted of robbing Hassan and conspiracy to falsely imprison him.

Jackson, from Lewisham, south-east London, and Chandler, from south-east London, were further found guilty of two counts of plotting to rob employees of Grosvenor Casinos, two counts of conspiracy to have a shotgun and imitation firearm in January last year, and two counts of conspiracy to falsely imprison.

Jail sentences totalling 99 years each for those offences were ordered to run concurrently with the minimum life term.

More defendants were also jailed for their involvement in the earlier robbery on the Grosvenor Casino and a second foiled robbery plot on the same location.

Damien Edwards, 22, and Steven Gibson, 30, also of south-east London, had earlier pleaded guilty to various offences relating to both incidents and were jailed for 15 years and 14 years and three months respectively. A 17-year-old youth who admitted his part in the robbery plot was jailed for seven and a half years.

The court heard Granger had previous convictions for drink-driving and fleeing from a taxi without paying his fare.

Jackson was previously convicted of cultivating cannabis and was jailed for eight months for his involvement in the London riots.

Chandler had been convicted of having counterfeit currency and was in breach of the suspended 10-month sentence at the time of the murder.