Source: ABC.net.au.
AUSTRALIA – A sex worker accused of causing the death of a client had little experience in “dominatrix-type services”, a court has been told.
Madeleine Joan Lewin, 34, is on trial for manslaughter in relation to the death of Anthony Brady, whose body was found in a room on the sixth floor of a Cairns hotel.
The Supreme Court in Cairns heard Mr Brady, 52, had arranged to meet Ms Lewin at the Sunshine Tower Hotel on the evening of August 12, 2020.
In his opening address to the jury, Crown prosecutor Nathan Crane said Mr Brady was in the hotel room “under a presumed consensual arrangement”.
But, he alleged, “an inherently dangerous” sex act, which Ms Lewin had oversight of, went wrong.
Mr Crane said Mr Brady was found with his legs and wrists bound, a hood over his head and a gag in his mouth.
The likely cause of his death was “mechanical asphyxiation”, the court heard.
Ms Lewin, who is representing herself during the proceedings, has pleaded not guilty.
Former clients to give evidence
Mr Crane said the “combination of the items [found in the hotel room] was inherently deadly” and that Ms Lewin had a duty to be “hypervigilant about his health and safety”.
However, he said it was not apparent Ms Lewin had “any significant degree of experience” in dominatrix-type services.
She had only bought the gag found with Mr Brady hours before his first message to her the previous day, the court heard.
The jury was told they would hear evidence during the trial from former clients of Ms Lewin and from the director of a website where she listed her services under an alias.
Mr Brady was in Cairns for work and was reported missing after he failed to check out of his room at a different hotel and did not attend some work-related tasks the morning after his death.
The court heard he had already checked in for his flight home to Brisbane shortly before he walked to meet Ms Lewin.
His wife is also listed among the witnesses in the trial.
The trial before Justice James Henry continues.
