An 18-year-old man has been accused of murder after strangling a gay older man to death during a sex game.
While Daniel Kurmelovs has admitted choking Frank Lennon, 53, he denies murdering him and claimed his death was an accident.
The pair had met in Manchester’s Gay Village on 20 July 2018.
Kurmelovs was asked to leave The Eagle bar in Bloom Street when he bumped into Lennon.
The jury has heard Lennon, who had never met the defendant before the night of his death, had asked Kurmelovs to strangle him for ‘masochistic pleasure’, Manchester Evening News reports.
Kurmelovs, who identifies as bisexual, accepted and the two went back to Lennon’s apartment in Collyhurst, where the man lived alone following his long-term partner’s death.
The defendant said he ‘couldn’t go home’ because he was too intoxicated.
When the victim asked Kurmelovs to choke him, the teenager originally refused, but then accepted.
Kurmelovs strangled Lennon, who was lay face down on the floor, about five or six times ‘on and off’, the defendant said. He first used his hands then later a scarf.
The defendant said Lennon told him ‘not to stop’ but then he ‘just hit the floor’.
Prosecutors allege Lennon was murdered because of further injuries he suffered. They further allege his apartment was ransacked following his death.
Lennon’s sibling found him the next day. The man had also suffered broken ribs and cuts to his right ear, inflicted after his death, a pathologist confirmed.
Kurmelovs said that he cut Lennon’s ear with scissors, ‘to check if he was still alive’.
‘Then I just got really really angry and annoyed. That’s when I ransacked the place.’
The items that had been stolen from Lennon’s flat included Lennon’s watch, crucifix neck chain 5,000 cigarettes the man had previously bought in Ibiza, Spain.
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