London -
A professional poker player was tied up, beaten and murdered for thousands of pounds in winnings he had stashed around his flat after being lured into a trap by a young woman he met at a casino, the Old Bailey has heard.
The killers of Mehmet Hassan, 56, were let into his north London home by a woman whom the victim had taken home after sharing a passionate kiss at a Mayfair casino just a few hours earlier, the court was told yesterday.
Care assistant Leonie-Marie Granger, 25, left the flat and ran to a taxi while Mr Hassan was bound around his knees and ankles and attacked with such ferocity that a visible footprint was left on his cheek, a jury was told.
While Mr Hassan lay dead in his own congealed blood, the three people allegedly responsible for his murder filmed themselves celebrating with banknotes that they had recovered from his flat, said Crispin Aylett, opening the case for the prosecution.
The footage recovered from Ms Granger's phone appeared to show a man on a bed wearing a gas mask while stuffing cash down his underpants.
A woman's voice is heard laughing in the background as two men throw money around.
The footage was discovered despite apparent attempts by Ms Granger to delete incriminating material from her phone.
“While Mr Hassan's body lay undetected in his flat, his killers were literally throwing his money around,” said Mr Aylett QC.
The court heard that Ms Granger first met Mr Hassan, who was divorced and had three children, about a month before the murder in one of the two Mayfair casinos that he used to frequent and made up to £15 000 at a time.
Mr Hassan, born in Cyprus, made a good living from gambling and used to stash most of the money in his Islington flat, the court was told.
The victim's brother said he had seen him pull £3 000 out of his microwave, and his cleaner reported seeing large amounts of cash in the flat.
But Mr Hassan's way of storing money and occasionally bringing women back to his flat made him vulnerable, said Mr Aylett.
He said Ms Granger worked with her boyfriend Kyrron Jackson and his close friend Nicholas Chandler, both 28, to rob Mr Hassan after learning about his money.
The two men were allegedly part of a gang involved in two attempts to rob casinos in the two months before the murder, the court heard.
Ms Granger allegedly met Mr Hassan on the night he was killed in March last year going to the Palm Beach Casino in Mayfair, where they were seen kissing so passionately that a witness suggested they got a room, Mr Aylett said.
They went back to his flat and she left within an hour, either leaving the door open or letting the two men into the flat while she made her escape in a taxi, the jury was told.
When police tracked down Ms Granger and told her of Mr Hassan's death, she claimed she had left when two men turned up and started snorting cocaine with Mr Hassan.
Ms Granger, of Gillingham, Kent; Mr Jackson, of Lewisham, south-east London; and Mr Chandler, of Lee, London, all deny murdering Mr Hassan.
The case continues.
The Independent