Leeds murder suspect 'raped and imprisoned sex worker' years before brutally killing a second, jury told
A man charged with brutally murdering a sex worker at his Leeds flat attacked another years before which has chilling similarities, a court has been told.
Steven Francis is standing trial for the killing of 43-year-old Louisa Hall at the tower block on Oatland Court in the Little London area in October 2023.
Leeds Crown Court heard that Francis claims someone must have gone to his flat when he was out and brutally beat and strangled her to death.
The jury was told that the 59-year-old also faces additional charges including two counts of rape, false imprisonment, ABH and robbery of another sex worker in the same flat years ago. He denies those offences also.
Opening the case for the Crown this morning, Stephen Wood KC said the woman, who cannot be named, had been a sex worker like Ms Hall.
She had been “looking for business” one evening when a taxi pulled up with Francis as the passenger.
He invited her to his flat and despite having reservations, she went with him. When they reached his flat they smoked crack for around an hour, but without warning he jumped towards her and told her she was “not going anywhere”.
He grabbed her by the neck and took money out of her pocket, before punching her to the face.
The woman said she was crouched in the corner of the room and must have then blacked out.
When she woke she was naked and felt sore in her genital area, suggesting he had “taken advantage of her” sexually when she was unconscious, prosecutor Mr Wood said.
He slapped her across the face and repeated that she was going nowhere. He left the flat and locked the door behind him, so she frantically searched for another key.
But he then returned, allegedly grabbed her by the throat and raped her. Later, in a desperate bid to escape, she told Francis she had cash in a bank, which interested him.
He then frogmarched her to a Post Office, warning her not to run. But when he momentarily let go of her, she saw her opportunity and fled. Francis was later arrested, but denied any wrongdoing.
Mr Wood said the incident had “similarities” to Ms Hall’s death.
She was found naked in Francis’ flat after a vicious assault, but tragically died a short time later. Ms Hall had more than 100 injuries, 45 of which had been inflicted by an unknown weapon.
He asked the jury: “Do these similarities amount to no more than the defendant being the victim of a series of coincidences?
“Or does it point to a man who targets sex workers and is quite prepared to use extreme violence towards them?”
Mr Wood told the jury that the account given by Francis to police about how Ms Hall came to be at his flat, and the brutal assault that caused her death, had been simply a series of lies.
These included claims that he was out of the flat to visit a friend who he had recently met that day on October 25, 2023.
However, the court heard that CCTV at the block of flats did not record him leaving the building at the time he claimed he did so.
His DNA was also found on the neck area of Ms Hall.
The trial continues and is expected to last nine days.