Killer of 'punchbag' grilfriend gets life
Wednesday, 7th December 2005, 12:02
Category: Crime and Punishment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIFE STYLE EXTRA (UK) - A vicious killer who murdered his "punchbag" girlfriend before dumping her body in a rolled up rug in a remote field was jailed for life.
Jermaine Flavius, 23, beat 24-year-old Kelly Sinnott with a hammer and broom handles before strangling her with the electrical cord of his playstation at his north London flat.
The body of Ms Sinnott, who was one of four girlfriends Flavius had on the go at the time, was discovered in a hedgerow of a field in Great Brickhill, Bucks, by a builder, three days after she was last seen alive in a pub near her home in Bethnal Green, east London, on October 2 last year.
Sentencing Flavius to life with a minim
um tariff of 15 years before he can be considered for re
lease, Judge David Paget QC said: "You killed Kelly Sinnott on October 2 2004 in the most brutal way and then dumped her semi naked body in a field near Milton Keynes, an area you knew well.
"The cause of death was both strangulation by ligature and numerous head injuries that must have been done with some force because there was numerous fractures.
"The brutality of what you did and the way you got rid of the body are difficult to reconcile with your claim of losing control."
Flavius muttered under his breath as he was led from the dock while his sentence was greeted with cries of "yes" from Ms Sinnott's family and friends in the public gallery.
Sallie Bennett-Jenkins, prosecuting, told the court: "Kelly was a young woman when she first met Jermaine Flavius and indeed she was a young woman when she met her death at his hands.
"The relationship perhaps was imbalanced. It c
erta
inly one that she experienced on occasions extreme violence. Her mother, father and close family were well awar
e Jermaine Flavius had used violence towards Kelly Sinnott.
"She would describe herself as his punchbag."
Ms Bennett-Jenkins added that Kelly had put Flavius's number under the name of "sexy" in her mobile given to her by her grandmother, and had a tattoo done that read "Property of Flavius".
She said: "She was in short his dog's body. Someone that was thought good enough for sex but little else. Indeed the relationship had little else."
Crack addict Flavius had fathered two children by different mothers and was living with one of them and his son Anthony, two, when Ms Sinnott was killed.
And at the time of his arrest, he had got another woman pregnant and who has since given birth to a daughter while he was on remand.
On the night of Ms Sinnott's murder had last been seen been at the Salisbury pub
in Dalst
on before catching a cab to the flat which Flavius shared with his other partner and son Anthony in Turnpike House, Islington.
There she was beaten with a broom handle which
snapped with the force of the blows and a hammer causing fractures to the facial bones.
But despite her injuries, she was killed when Flavius ripped out a flex from a Sega handheld control console and together with a shoe lace strangled her.
A post mortem revealed that she had injuries that were "consistent with forceful sexual activities that was being resisted by the deceased."
Describing how her body was discovered by a builder on his way to work in the early morning of October 5, Ms Bennett-Jenkins said: "He saw what he thought was a carpet. He was unsure what he saw but thought it had some feet sticking out of it. His first thoughts was this must be a mannequin or dummy.
"On closer inspection by the gentleman, the partially clothed and beaten body of Kelly Sinnott was
found wrapp
ed up in a rug."
After reading about the discovery of Ms Sinnott's body in a newspaper Flavius handed himself in to police.Psychiatric reports said Flavius suffered from a personality disorder that was ant
i-social and prone to losing his temper.
http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=Y...riend_gets_life
