Male prostitute jailed for killing client

A male prostitute has been jailed for killing a wealthy Sydney client whom he bound, gagged and abandoned while he withdrew $7000 from the man’s bank account over the next six days.

Describing the restraint as “cruel and degrading”, Justice Christine Adamson said Yutian Li was motivated by greed and she rejected his claim that Ian Craigie was blackmailing him.

In the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, she jailed the 24-year-old Chinese national, who was in Australia on a student visa, for a minimum of eight years and six months and a maximum of 12 years.

Li pleaded guilty to the manslaughter, by unlawful and dangerous act, of Mr Craigie, 63, at his unit in inner-city Glebe between September 19 and 25, 2009.

He also admitted eight counts of obtaining money by deception and aggravated robbery.

After friends and colleagues became concerned about Mr Craigie’s welfare, police entered his unit and found the body of the former barrister and respected classics teacher at St Ignatius’ College, Riverview.

“He had clear packing tape wrapped around his wrists and hands, across his chest, his thighs, his ankles and his mouth,” the judge said.

His body was badly decomposed and while a pathologist could not determine the cause of his death, he said asphyxia was a possible cause.

Friends described Mr Craigie as wealthy and open about hiring Asian male prostitutes of a particular age for sex.

The judge found Mr Craigie and Li met at the unit fortnightly, from November 2008 until September 2009, for the purpose of having sex, for which Mr Craigie paid.

“This was a consensual commercial arrangement,” the judge said.

From knife wounds on the body, she concluded there was a physical altercation in the course of which Li had overpowered Mr Craigie.

He was assaulted, then heavily taped, which the judge said indicated Li went to considerable effort to “disable and silence” his victim.

“During the days that followed his binding and gagging the deceased, the offender took no steps whatsoever to see whether (he) was alive, to render assistance himself or to alert others to (his) need for assistance,” the judge said.

She rejected a claim he did not ring triple zero because of his allegedly poor English or lack of knowledge of the service.

Rather, the reason was “his lack of humanity towards another human being whom he had exploited, and ultimately killed, for his own greed”.

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