'Axe killing was like swatting a fly'

A woman accused of killing her lover with an axe during a bondage sex session said today it was as if she had merely "swatted a fly".

"I just tutted as if I had done nothing at all," former escort girl Janet Charlton told Leeds Crown Court.

In fact, Danny O'Brien had been hit 20 times with the axe which was left embedded in his head and with stockings and suspenders draped over the handle, the court heard.

Charlton, who denies murder, claims she killed Mr O'Brien because he had threatened to sexually abuse her three-year-old daughter and kill them both. She was asked how she felt immediately after the killing.

"I was numb," she said. "When I was hitting him I just hated him, he repulsed me." Pressed on how she felt in the immediate aftermath she said: "It was as if I had just swatted a fly."

Mr O'Brien, a wealthy businessman, was discovered naked, handcuffed, and with a ball in his mouth at his home near Wakefield a year ago.

The prosecution claim Charlton killed him because she knew their relationship was soon to end.

Yesterday she told the court that she hit Mr O'Brien "in a panic" so she could escape from the bedroom after he had threatened to harm her and her daughter. She admits she hit him when he was handcuffed, gagged and on his knees with his back to her.

At first she had denied killing him and it was only weeks later after having nightmares that she realised she was the killer and went to the police, she said.

The case continues.