SOLDIER JAILED FOR LIFE AFTER BRUTAL KILLING OF WOMAN IN LOWTON
A PRIVATE investigator who sexually humiliated and then strangled an innocent Newton College student after watching a hard-core pornographic video at a party was jailed for life on Wednesday.Ex-soldier Stuart Hulse, 37, became frustrated by the perverted sex scenes on the 18-minute-long film and later attacked 46-year-old Shirley Brown when he spotted her collecting her milk from her front door.
Hulse slipped unnoticed into divorcee Mrs Brown's home in Allerby Way, Lowton, near Warrington, and then tied her up and sexually abused her in a chilling re-enactment of the film before strangling her with her own tights.
And at Manchester Crown Court, Hulse's barrister launched a scathing attack on the hard-core pornography which led to the tragic and brutal killing of Mrs Brown.
"It is recognised that such material can affect certain vulnerable sections of society because it corrupts by portraying obscenity as normal and it debases acts which falsely suggest women privately welcome being used in such a sexual fashion," said Roderick Carus, QC.
"The defendant became drunk and inflamed by what he witnessed on the video and by the sexual conduct of the other party goers.
That unusual combination of circumstances, for a short time, loosened the constraints which guide decent people and it resulted in this dreadful crime." Hulse, a married man, admitted murdering Mrs Brown.
He was jailed for life by Mr Justice Forbes who said the victim was a thoroughly decent and respectable lady.
"She was intelligent, happy and still in the full tide of her life.
She was a devoted and loving mother and had much to look forward to and she will be greatly missed.
It was you who destroyed that life.
It is to your credit that you have admitted this shocking and brutal crime.
To a woman living alone, you were the worst possible nightmare.
You subjected her to a savage and horrifying sexual attack which led to her death.
She was an entirely innocent victim of your unbridled and perverted sexual passion at the time you inflicted a terrible death upon her." Mrs Brown, a divorcee who was studying for her English Literature A level was found dead at her home by a police officer.
He and her neighbours had been alerted by Mrs Brown's son, Richard, who became terrified when he could not find his mother after being dropped off at home after a weekend with his father.
Mrs Brown was wrapped in a duvet in her bedroom.
She had been gagged and bound with her underwear and strangled.
Hulse, who lived just a few hundred yards away in Slag Lane, was one of hundreds of men interviewed during police inquiries and denied knowing the victim.
But when he was linked to her body by a saliva swab, he suddenly changed his story and claimed he had been having an affair with her although he still denied murdering her.
But on Wednesday, after Hulse pleaded guilty to murder, his counsel admitted that the couple were strangers and that Hulse attacked her while inflamed by lust after watching the pornographic film at a party where other guests were then involved in sexual activity.
Mr Carus said Hulse, a soldier for 14 years with active service in Northern Ireland and the Falklands, was having marital problems and spotted Mrs Brown as she collected her milk.
"He slipped into her home and confronted her.
She cried out in alarm and he overpowered her and forced himself on her," said counsel.
"Then the defendant says he panicked and to prevent her identification of him, he trussed her up in such a way as to cause her death from ligature strangulation.
"It was a chilling end to an innocent life," said Mr Carus.
"Yet he has salvaged some good from the ashes of this case because it is now publicly known that the deceased bore no responsibility whatever for the events which led to her death." "She was entirely blameless and will be remembered so.
He hopes that realisation will bring some alleviation to the grief of her relatives and friends and not least to her son."
