A British banker accused of murdering two Indonesian women in Hong Kong, one of whom he tortured for days, was a sexually sadistic narcissist with a cocaine and alcohol addiction, the court heard on Monday.
Forensic psychiatrist Richard Latham, who spent hours interviewing 31-year-old Rurik Jutting after his arrest, told the court the accused had a “narcissistic personality disorder.”
He also had developed a “sex sadism disorder,” Latham said.
“(It) started in porn, with people behaving in a consensual way to begin with, then it was non-consensual, pushing further and culminating in dramatic and horrific acts that you have seen here,” he told the court.
Jutting has pleaded not guilty to murdering Sumatri Ningsih, 23, and Seneng Mujiasih, 26, who were found dead in his apartment on November 1, 2014.
He is claiming diminished responsibility, meaning he was not in his right mind when he committed the acts. He said he would plead guilty to two counts of manslaughter.
His defense began their arguments on Monday, starting with Latham’s testimony.
Jutting had ‘high opinion of himself’
Describing Jutting as a “highly intelligent man,” Latham said the defendant had a “high opinion of himself.”
“He describes himself in terms of boastful, showing off achievements and how good he is. For example, he said he didn’t get a first at Cambridge, but that was because his examiners didn’t understand him,” he said.
At the time of the murders, Latham said Jutting’s ability to control himself was reduced by his narcissistic personality disorder.
“It affects his sense of entitlement and his ability to empathize with another person,” he said. “That interacted with the intoxication and it is this, I think, that reduced his ability to control his behavior.”
On October 27, 2014, Jutting killed Ningsih by cutting her throat after he had held her hostage and tortured her for three days. Four days later, on November 1, he did the same to Mujiasih shortly after she entered his apartment.
In his final assessment, Latham said Jutting’s ability to control had been “impaired” but would not say whether or not the former banker was not guilty of murder due to diminished responsibility.
“That is a matter for the jury,” he said.
Torture, rape ‘sexually excited’ Jutting
According to Latham, Jutting’s interest in sexual violence developed over a period of time.
“In May 2011 he read a review of sex workers into extreme practices … in 2013 he was looking for more submissive sex workers,” he told the court.
“Torture, rape, slavery … made him sexually excited.”
On a series of videos made after he killed Ningsih, played to the court by prosecutors in the past week, Jutting admitted he had previously raped two women and described his pornography habits.
“Search terms, BDSM library, slave, captive, and just about to read a story about someone being raped, captured, tortured,” he said in a video made on his phone.
In others he talked about how imprisonment and torture were a “sexual fantasy” of his, while in another he said he shouldn’t have tried to translate them into real life.
The trial will continue on Tuesday.