Victim "got sexual gratification from extreme violence"

7:30am Thursday 19th November 2009

By Lawrence Dunhill

A BUSINESSMAN who was punched and kicked to death took sexual gratification from “extreme violence”, a court heard.

Kieran Avery, 21, has denied the murder of 49-year-old Colin Butler, who was found dead in his front garden in Marlow Road, High Wycombe, on October 24 last year.

The prosecution told jurors that Avery, who was unemployed and living at the YMCA at the time, has admitting the killing by pleading guilty to manslaughter.

Scientists revealed that Avery could have been straddling Mr Butler at one point during the killing and there were at least 29 blows to his head and neck.

Part of Mr Butler's jaw was dislodged while his nose was completely flattened – possibly by stamping, the court heard.

Two witnesses, whose identities were kept secret, were called by the prosecution yesterday. Both knew Mr Butler after contacting him through a sex chat line.

A 34-year-old man, referred to as Witness A, met Mr Butler in a High Wycombe hotel in 2007.

Once in a room both men undressed and Mr Butler became threatening and started to punch the man in his stomach, the court heard.

He then started to 'touch himself' while hitting the man's torso with “full force” before there was sexual activity between the pair, the court heard.

On another occasion Mr Butler telephoned Witness A who told the court: “He wanted me to go to his flat and break in. He wanted me to pretend to be a burglar and attack him.”

Mr Butler boasted to Witness A that he was into “extreme violence” and had been barred from most pubs in High Wycombe because of fighting, the court heard.

Witness A said he had an “instinctive feeling” that Mr Butler was “bad”, and he felt scared when he met him. He said Mr Butler was “controlling, persuasive and manipulative”.

On the night Mr Butler was killed he had wanted to meet Witness A and “attack” him and got annoyed when Witness A said he was busy, the court heard.

Mr Butler “liked it both ways” - to be beaten up and to do the beating up, the court heard.

Witness B met Mr Butler at his Marlow Road home, who greeted the man “in his underpants”.

Mr Butler told Witness B that he was 'into' strangulation, fist fighting and liked to be tied up, the court heard.

The man was then strangled by Mr Butler and it took “all of his strength” to get him off, the court heard.

Mr Butler asked the man to go “naked” to some nearby woods where “violence would take place”, the court heard.

The man eventually told Mr Butler he was going to have a cigarette outside before fleeing the house, the court heard.