Murdered by the friend she had trusted since childhood
Jury rejects killer’s ‘rough sex’ defence after attack on night out
A ‘TRUSTED friend’ who claimed he accidentally killed a woman during rough sex was convicted of rape and murder yesterday.
Wesley Streete, 20, dumped Keeley Bunker’s half-naked body in a brook and hid it with branches after the attack.
A court heard that Streete had a ‘long history’ of sex attacks on young women, and pounced on would-be teaching assistant Miss Bunker, also 20, as he walked her home following a night out.
The victim’s uncle, Jason Brown, discovered her body during a search involving family, friends and police that next evening. Mr Brown’s shouts upon discovering the body were ‘the most horrendous screaming I have heard in my life’, a police officer told the court.
Following the jury’s conviction of Streete, after eight hours of deliberation, police released video-footage of Miss Bunker dancing in a Birmingham club hours before she was killed.
Streete, who towered above his six- and- a- half stone victim, repeatedly lied about what had happened to his childhood friend, initially claiming to have walked her home, then describing how she had fallen and fatally banged her head as they joked around.
Before the trial he changed his story again, alleging he had ‘accidentally killed her’ by putting his forearm around her neck during sex. He claimed this happened after mutual flirting led to consensual sex in Wiggington Park in their home town of Tamworth, Staffordshire. ‘I put my arms around her neck and accidentally killed her,’ Streete told his trial. ‘We were having sex.’
Streete claimed he only realised Miss Bunker was in distress when she ‘went floppy and stopped’.
He argued that CCTV depicting the pair near the entrance had
‘Wes will walk me back. It’ll be fine’
shown them ‘play fighting’, rather than showing Miss Bunker trying to get away from him.
But her injuries told a different story. She had scratches on her neck, shown to be self-inflicted from skin recovered from her fingernails, probably caused as she tried to prise his hands off her.
Stafford Crown Court heard that on the night of September 18, Miss Bunker and her friend Monique Riggon had been to Birmingham to see rapper Aitch in celebration of the victim’s recent birthday.
They then met Streete, as arranged, and went to Snobs nightclub. The court heard Miss Bunker saw him as ‘just a friend’.
When the trio returned to Tamworth by taxi, Miss Riggon offered her friend a bed for the night.
‘But Keeley refused – tragically – saying she wanted to sleep in her own bed,’ prosecutor Jacob Hallam said. She told her friend: ‘I’ve got Wes, Wes lives near me, Wes will walk me back, it’ll be fine.’
Streete, a warehouse packer, was arrested after her body was found – but earlier had moaned to police that people were blaming him for her disappearance. Detective
Inspector Cheryl Hannan said: ‘I think there’s some audacity in his arrogance there in playing the martyr knowing full well where she was and what he’d done.’
Miss Bunker’s mother, Deborah Watkins, said in a victim impact statement: ‘I have been robbed of my daughter and holding her hand through life’s experiences.’ The victim’s father, Christopher Bunker, 51, said he would never be at peace until he was laid to rest alongside his daughter.
The court heard that five months before he murdered Miss Bunker, a barmaid, Streete raped a teenager he had met through Snapchat. He was also convicted of raping that woman, as well as a further count of rape and three sex assaults.
A ban on killers using the ‘rough sex defence’ – where they argue victims were injured in consensual violence – is set to become law after MPs last month supported an amendment to the Domestic Abuse Bill. The Bill now rules out ‘consent for sexual gratification’.
Streete will be sentenced in court tomorrow.