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05/07/2007
Sex pervert jailed for murder
A sex pervert has been jailed for life after he was found guilty of murdering a special needs teacher in 2004.
Musician Graham Coutts, 39, was found guilty on his retrial of the murder of special needs teacher Jane Longhurst, 31, from Brighton.
Coutts, from Hove in Sussex, had denied murder claiming that the death was an accident during consensual sex.
The jury found that Coutts was guilty of murder and had strangled Ms Longhurst after forcing her to have sex.
Judge Richard Hone said that he had no doubts that the victim had not consented to sex with Coutts.
The killer had kept the body in car boot, a garden shed and then a storage unit before he attempted to burn the body on a common.
The Judge told Coutts: "Your meticulous attempts to cover up what you had did are the key to your true intentions."
A retrial had been ordered after Law Lords ruled that an initial trial was found to be flawed after the jury had not been offered the alternative of a finding of manslaughter.
Coutts had been found guilty of murder at the initial trial and sentenced to 26 years.
(SP/JM)
Musician Graham Coutts, 39, was found guilty on his retrial of the murder of special needs teacher Jane Longhurst, 31, from Brighton.
Coutts, from Hove in Sussex, had denied murder claiming that the death was an accident during consensual sex.
The jury found that Coutts was guilty of murder and had strangled Ms Longhurst after forcing her to have sex.
Judge Richard Hone said that he had no doubts that the victim had not consented to sex with Coutts.
The killer had kept the body in car boot, a garden shed and then a storage unit before he attempted to burn the body on a common.
The Judge told Coutts: "Your meticulous attempts to cover up what you had did are the key to your true intentions."
A retrial had been ordered after Law Lords ruled that an initial trial was found to be flawed after the jury had not been offered the alternative of a finding of manslaughter.
Coutts had been found guilty of murder at the initial trial and sentenced to 26 years.
(SP/JM)
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