Mehmet Hassan: Poker player lured to hotel by honeytrap woman and then tied up, beaten and murdered for his winning, court hears

Mr Hassan, 56, was bound with tape, then kicked and stamped to death in the bedroom of his Islington flat

(Rex)

A successful professional poker player was tied up, beaten and murdered for his money after being lured into a trap by a woman he met at a casino, the Old Bailey heard today.

Mehmet Hassan, 56, was bound with tape, then kicked and stamped to death in the bedroom of his Islington flat, after two killers were let in by a woman who was seen kissing the victim passionately just a few hours earlier, the court was told.

The court heard that Mr Hassan was lying dead in his home while care assistant Leonie Granger, 25, and the two killers celebrated by throwing £50 notes around a room. The celebration was filmed on Ms Granger’s phone which was retrieved by police and featured a man with his face obscured by a gas mask in the clip shown to the jury.

"While Mr Hassan's body lay undetected in his flat, his killers were literally throwing his money around," said Crispin Aylett QC, counsel for the prosecution.

Ms Granger is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of murder and false imprisonment alongside her boyfriend Kyrron Jackson and his close friend Nicholas Chandler, both 28.

Mr Hassan, a gambler who won as much as £15,000 at a time, stashed his winnings around the flat and kept £3,000 in his microwave, the court heard. The divorced father-of-three enjoyed the company of women, making him vulnerable to the unscrupulous such as Ms Granger, the court heard.

The court heard that Ms Granger first met Mr Hassan about a month before he was killed. On the night he was murdered, she met him for dinner at a casino in London’s Mayfair before she went back to his flat.

She left soon afterwards in a cab and is accused of either leaving the door open or letting the two men inside the flat while she got into a cab and left the area.

She was overheard by the driver making a phone call to someone telling them to look in the drawer and under the cabinets, the court was told. Mr Hassan’s body was found later that day after his family was unable to raise him.

Mr Aylett said: "The truth, sadly, is that Miss Granger was not interested in Mehmet Hassan for anything other than his money. And that is how Mehmet Hassan came to be tied up and kicked to death in his own flat."

The court heard that the two men had allegedly been involved in two previous armed robberies in 2014 before the murder of Mr Hassan in March last year.

Ms Granger, of Gillingham, Kent; Mr Jackson, of Lewisham, south-east London; and Mr Chandler, of Lee, London, all deny charges against them.

The case continues