Axe woman: I can't remember killing

A former escort girl who admitted killing her wealthy lover with an axe after blindfolding him and handcuffing him for sex told a court this afternoon that she remembered nothing of the attack.

Jan Charlton, who killed Daniel O'Brien with 20 blows, wept at Leeds Crown Court today as she said she had no recollection of the killing.

After Mr O'Brien's death she went to a park with her four-year-old daughter, Amy, and when they returned home later that afternoon the little girl found Mr O'Brien's body. Asked if she had any recollection of what happened in the bedroom of their home near Wakefield she replied: "None whatsoever."

Robert Smith for the defence asked: "Are you able to explain how that came about and can you explain your own feelings or thoughts either then or since?"

She replied: "I don't think I will ever be able to explain it but at the time I left the house I thought he was still alive. Even now I know I said goodbye to him at the patio doors."

The trial has heard how for weeks Charlton denied murdering Mr O'Brien with a 2ft axe only for her to admit to the crime as the evidence mounted against her.

She claims she killed Mr O'Brien because he had threatened her and her daughter and told the court yesterday: "I had no choice." She told the court today how she returned home from the park still having no recollection of the death and she sent Amy upstairs to say goodbye to Mr O'Brien as she was leaving to visit her father. "I went upstairs calling his name and went into the bedroom and that is when I found him," she said. "I just screamed and screamed, my knees buckled and I actually fell to the floor.

Her estranged husband, Tony, who had come round to pick up his daughter, grabbed the crying child and she ran round in a panic.

Later she was taken to the police station to be questioned. Mr Smith asked her: "From that night did you know you had killed him with the axe?" "No, I didn't," she said.

Earlier Charlton was asked why she had gone up to the bedroom. For sex she said. The case continues.