Source: Metro.news
NEW ZEALAND –
BRITISH backpacker Grace Millane asked a previous boyfriend to choke her during sex and had profiles on BDSM websites, a murder trial in New Zealand has heard.
Her former partner said he and Ms Millane had researched how to practise choking safely, the court in Auckland was told. ‘Grace and I discussed keeping hands wide and on the side of the neck, never on the front,’ he told police.
‘Grace and I would have a safe word most of the time which we had discussed, something like “turtle” or something ridiculous. Grace and I used a tapping practice too. If Grace tapped me three times then it would stop.’
Jurors heard messages sent from her had been found on two BDSM dating sites called FetLife and Whiplr, which she accessed an hour before a Tinder date on December 1 last year, a day before her 22nd birthday, with a 27-year-old man accused of her murder. The defendant, who cannot be named, is said to have strangled her and shoved her body inside a suitcase before burying it in a wooded area outside Auckland.
Defence barrister Ron Mansfield told jurors Ms Millane, from Wickford, Essex, was ‘a loving, bright, intelligent young woman’, adding: ‘The fact that we need to discuss with you what she liked to do in the bedroom should have no impact on her reputation at all.’
Called by the defence, pathologist Dr Fintan Garavan said Grace died after being involved in consensual sexual activity including choking.
He said a bruise found on her neck was not located in deep tissue and there was ‘no evidence to injuries of deeper haemorrhaging’. The trial continues.
