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21/04/2010
Killer Claims Sex Game Went Wrong
A man killed his girlfriend by strangling her when a steamy sex session went wrong, a court has heard.
Jason O'Malley, 39, who was having affairs with three women at the same time claimed that his girlfriend Kerry Sneddon liked him to squeeze her throat during sex.
He told officers when arrested that the beauty therapist encouraged him to apply "a little bit of pressure" and they had done it six or seven times in sex sessions although he didn't like doing it.
Bryan Cox QC, prosecuting, told the court that on the night Ms Sneddon died O'Malley claimed to remember the pair beginning sex but not finishing.
In his police interview he said although he could not remember what happened Ms Sneddon had asked him to apply pressure to her neck in the past.
But Mr Cox told the court O'Malley's "amnesia" was "exposed as a lie" when he rang his ex-wife and confessed to the killing.
He said O'Malley met Ms Sneddon on an internet dating site and their relationship "was not without its difficulties."
He told the court O'Malley had got another woman pregnant at the start of their relationship.
O'Malley's ex-wife Karen O'Malley, who was married to him for five years before he left her for Ms Sneddon, told Sheffield Crown Court he called her on the night of the killing and confessed.
She said: "He apologised for everything he had done to me and then he said 'I've done something stupid'. He started to get upset and I knew there was something wrong, then he said 'I've killed her'."
She told jurors he was sobbing and asked her not to tell anyone but she dialled 999.
When police arrived at the house on November 8 last year they found O'Malley kneeling by the stairs with a piece of brown cotton material looped around his neck and tied to the bannister as if he had been attempting suicide.
He screamed: "What have I done, is she going to be all right?"
A pathologist found bruises on Miss Sneddon's neck and face consistent with death by asphyxiation from a ligature being applied. He said they were not caused during consensual sexual activity as the defendant claimed.
O'Malley told police the couple had drunk some beer and began kissing and stripping each other's clothes off after watching the X Factor.
He could not remember finishing sex although he remembered starting it. He said he would never have harmed Miss Sneddon as they were "soulmates".
The hearing continues.
(LB/BMcC)
Jason O'Malley, 39, who was having affairs with three women at the same time claimed that his girlfriend Kerry Sneddon liked him to squeeze her throat during sex.
He told officers when arrested that the beauty therapist encouraged him to apply "a little bit of pressure" and they had done it six or seven times in sex sessions although he didn't like doing it.
Bryan Cox QC, prosecuting, told the court that on the night Ms Sneddon died O'Malley claimed to remember the pair beginning sex but not finishing.
In his police interview he said although he could not remember what happened Ms Sneddon had asked him to apply pressure to her neck in the past.
But Mr Cox told the court O'Malley's "amnesia" was "exposed as a lie" when he rang his ex-wife and confessed to the killing.
He said O'Malley met Ms Sneddon on an internet dating site and their relationship "was not without its difficulties."
He told the court O'Malley had got another woman pregnant at the start of their relationship.
O'Malley's ex-wife Karen O'Malley, who was married to him for five years before he left her for Ms Sneddon, told Sheffield Crown Court he called her on the night of the killing and confessed.
She said: "He apologised for everything he had done to me and then he said 'I've done something stupid'. He started to get upset and I knew there was something wrong, then he said 'I've killed her'."
She told jurors he was sobbing and asked her not to tell anyone but she dialled 999.
When police arrived at the house on November 8 last year they found O'Malley kneeling by the stairs with a piece of brown cotton material looped around his neck and tied to the bannister as if he had been attempting suicide.
He screamed: "What have I done, is she going to be all right?"
A pathologist found bruises on Miss Sneddon's neck and face consistent with death by asphyxiation from a ligature being applied. He said they were not caused during consensual sexual activity as the defendant claimed.
O'Malley told police the couple had drunk some beer and began kissing and stripping each other's clothes off after watching the X Factor.
He could not remember finishing sex although he remembered starting it. He said he would never have harmed Miss Sneddon as they were "soulmates".
The hearing continues.
(LB/BMcC)
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