Gambler kicked to death after honey trap

Woman snared victim at casino, then let killers into ‘soft target’s’ flat

A young woman wept as she was found guilty of setting a honey trap for a professional gambler who was kicked to death for his winnings.

Care assistant Leonie Granger, 25, deliberately targeted 56-year-old Mehmet Hassan in March last year after meeting him in a Mayfair casino.

She was found guilty at the Old Bailey of Mr Hassan’s manslaughter but not guilty of murder. Her co-defendants Kyrron Jackson, 28, and Nicholas Chandler, 29, were convicted of murder.

As the guilty verdicts were delivered, Chandler lashed out angrily, shouting and swearing, and had to be grappled to the floor and removed by six dock officers.

Judge William Kennedy then warned the remaining pair they faced “significant and immediate” jail when they are all sentenced on Tuesday, April 28.

The court heard how Mr Hassan was oblivious to the sting as he wined and dined the woman he knew as Rachel, even bragging to his friends that he was not paying her to be with him.

After their first date, Granger, of Gillingham, Kent, was overheard by a taxi driver reporting back that Hassan was “flashy”, saying: “This guy is a professional gambler. He has never worked a day in his life.”

On the night of the murder, Mr Hassan had taken Granger to the top Mayfair restaurant Nobu before going on to the Palm Beach Casino nearby where he gave her £1,000 in cash to gamble with.

Dressed in a strapless top, tight-fitting black trousers, high heels and a large gold necklace, Granger was spotted by a poker supervisor kissing Hassan “passionately” and she told the pair to “get a room”.

Later, he took her back to his Islington flat where she made her excuses and left in a taxi — but not before letting in her boyfriend Jackson and his friend Chandler, who were poised to strike outside.

Using parcel tape, the two men tied up Mr Hassan in his bedroom, then kicked him to death as they ransacked his home in search of his stash of cash.

While Mr Hassan’s beaten and bloody body lay undiscovered, the killers were filmed on Granger’s mobile phone throwing wads of £50 (€69) notes around.

Granger’s “soft target” was known to have two favourite casinos in Mayfair — the Playboy Casino on Old Park Lane and the Palm Beach Casino in Berkeley Street.

He sometimes won as much as £15,000 (€20,000) at a time and rather than using bank accounts, he would keep his winnings around his flat, storing thousands of pounds in his microwave.

The fact the divorced father-of-three “enjoyed the company of women” made him particularly “vulnerable to the unscrupulous”, prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC told jurors.

He said Mr Hassan’s death was the “culmination of the ruthless greed” of Jackson and Chandler

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