A FORMER escort girl who killed her wealthy lover with an axe was "a very good actress" who tried to cover up her "planning, clean-up and lies'' afterwards, a jury at Leeds Crown Court was told.

Jan Charlton, aged 36, killed businessman Daniel O'Brien after being told their relationship -- and the luxury lifestyle she had grown accustomed to -- was to end, Paul Worsley, QC, said in his closing speech for the prosecution.

He said: "She wanted the house, the lifestyle, the sexual activity and all that came, and she was not going to give it up."

Former Harwood man Mr O'Brien, aged 40, was found with an axe embedded in his head at the home they shared in Midgley, West Yorkshire, on May 23 last year. He was blindfolded and gagged, and had been struck at least 20 times.

Charlton, who admits killing Mr O'Brien but denies murder, claims lawful self-defence and provocation after he allegedly threatened to kill both her and her three-year-old daughter Amy.

Mr Worsley said Charlton was not, as she earlier told the court, intending to leave Mr O'Brien, but "desperately trying to stay". The prosecution alleges that it was Mr O'Brien who had asked Charlton to leave because he had decided to resume his relationship with former girlfriend Lynn Golland.

Mr Worsley added: "Within the space of four months they (Charlton and Mr O'Brien) had been to Jamaica, Amsterdam, Canada.

"He had sufficient money for neither of them to have to work between Christmas and May. He satisfied her sexual appetite.

"She would not accept that all that was at an end because of another woman, and she would not accept that he would not agree over the money which she demanded when he told her to leave."

One would have to be, Mr Worsley said, "a very clever liar to get away with murder" and "very ruthless'' to hack someone to death with an axe.

He added: "Thirdly, you need to be a very good actress to be able to conceal to all around you what you have done. The prosecution case is that Mrs Charlton has all those qualities because a painstaking police investigation was carried out and has revealed the planning, the clean-up and the lies."

(Proceeding)