Court

'Walter Mitty' Killer Claimed Self-Defence, Then Changed Story and Blamed 'Masked Middle-Eastern Gunmen'
Thur 15th Jan 2015, Yellow Advertiser

BEFORE changing his plea to guilty, killer Lewis Daynes tried to blame his violent actions on two fictitious gunmen.

The killer, described by lead cop DI Anne Cameron as a ‘Walter Mitty type’, made the claim in prison.

But prosecutor Richard Whittam QC claimed the story had ended up offering investigators a new insight into Daynes’ brutal crime.

In initial police interviews Daynes had claimed sexual activity between he and Breck was consensual and had occurred some time before he killed the schoolboy in ‘self defence’.

He made the claim despite forensic tests proving Breck had spilled a large amount of blood ‘within minutes’ of sexual activity taking place.

Once in prison and while protesting his innocence, he wrote to a guard, claiming that if he was acquitted he would spend the rest of his life searching for two Middle Eastern gunmen who had broken into his flat and murdered Breck in front of him.

He claimed the men, wearing ski masks, forced him to carry out a sex act on Breck and then executed the boy in front of him.

He said they forced him to shower and then take the photos of Breck’s body that he later sent to online contacts.

In the letter he claimed he had to find the men, otherwise he ‘would be next’.

He repeated his claim that Breck was murdered by men in ski masks to an inspector during a custody review.

But he pleaded guilty to the murder at a subsequent hearing.

Mr Whittam told Mrs Justice Cox that although the story was fictitious, it suggested Daynes had accepted at the time that the sexual activity between he and Breck was not consensual.

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