Boy`suffocated in homosexual orgy’ – Jason Swift
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Times, The (London, England)-March 16, 1989
Author: Mark Souster

A teenage boy who ran away from home to escape his bullying family was killed during an horrific homosexual orgy, the Central Criminal Court was told yesterday.

Jason Swift was drugged and slowly suffocated to death during an assault by four men at a flat in east London in November 1985, the court was told. His naked body was found under leaves in a wood.

Mr Julian Bevan, for the prosecution, said Jason, who was aged 14 when he died, became embroiled in a “seedy world” on the streets of Hackney. “He scrounged a living by lending his body to men who used him as no more and no less than a vessel for their sexual satisfaction.”

The jury was told he was promised Pounds 5 to join several men at a flat at the Kingsmead estate, Hackney. A month after his body was found an anonymous telephone caller told the police: “I just want to say it shouldn’t have happened like that. I want you to know it was an accident.”

Mr Bevan said the caller was Sidney Cooke, aged 61, one of the defendants. However, it was not until the summer of 1987 that the men were arrested. He said they had confessed to the police.

Mr Cooke, of Oswald Mead, Sherreys Walk estate, Homerton; Stephen Barrell, aged 29, fishmonger, of Arnold Road, Dagenham; Leslie Bailey, aged 35, of Rivermead House, Kingsmead estate; and Robert Oliver, aged 34, of Forsythe House, Frampton Park estate, Hackney, deny manslaughter. They deny conspiring to commit gross indecency and a serious sexual offence. Mr Cooke and Mr Bailey deny intending to pervert justice by disposing of the body. Mr Bailey denies attempting to render Jason unconscious and incapable of resisting sexual acts.

No evidence was offered against Donald Smith, aged 64, of Ashmead House, Kingsmead estate, the alleged scene of the killing, who was discharged after denying manslaughter, indecent assault and perverting justice. The trial continues today.