Sex worker Madeleine Joan Lewin’s manslaughter trial over death of Anthony Michael Brady begins in Cairns Supreme Court

A Brisbane auditor was found dead in a Cairns hotel room, bound to the bed by his ankles and wrists, with a rope around his neck, a gag ball in his mouth, and a spandex hood covering his face, a trial has heard.

UPDATE, 5PM: A Brisbane auditor was found dead in a Cairns hotel room, bound to the bed by his ankles and wrists, with a rope around his neck, a gag ball in his mouth, and a spandex hood covering his face, a trial has heard.

At the start of her manslaughter trial in the Cairns Supreme Court on Monday, sex worker Madeleine Joan Lewin, 34, pleaded not guilty to the unlawful killing of Brisbane service station auditor Anthony Michael Brady, 52.

Ms Lewin is representing herself in the trial, which is expected to run into next week.

Crown prosecutor Nathan Crane during his opening address, said Mr Brady was a client of Ms Lewin and that his likely cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation.

Madeleine Lewin. Picture: supplied

He alleged that Mr Brady being adorned with those items and being tied in such a way that he could not move, and the number of mechanisms that restricted his breath, including being face down, meant the sex act Mr Brady and Ms Lewin were engaged in was “inherently dangerous”.

“In those circumstances, there just wasn’t the reasonable care and skill by Ms Lewin when having the oversight of that bondage arrangement,” Mr Crane said.

“This is, members of the jury, a clinical legal and community test. It’s not one about morality.”

Mr Crane said there must have been some naivety on the behalf of Mr Brady when being subjected to what were consensual acts.

“He was going to have to go back to his wife the next day with abrasions around his neck and wrists,” Mr Crane told the jury.

The court heard there was also a whip on the bed, lubricant, and a used glass dildo between Mr Brady’s legs.

Mr Crane said Mr Brady was in Cairns auditing service stations and had arrived on the Monday, August 10, 2020.

The Sunshine Tower Hotel on Sheridan Street. PICTURE: BRENDAN RADKE

He was due to fly home on August 13 – but never checked out of his hotel.

Police began searching for him after being alerted to his disappearance on the night of August 13, eventually tracking down the last known footage of him as he entered a lift at the Sunshine Tower Hotel after 8.30pm on August 12.

He was found deceased in Ms Lewin’s unit on August 14.

Mr Crane said the Crown case was predicated on the basis there was consent, but in the circumstances of all those items being used upon Mr Brady, “there was a requirement that Ms Lewin be effectively hypervigilant about his ongoing health and safety in the course of a professional service that was being provided to him”.

He said that in the circumstances in which Mr Brady was found, there was nothing to suggest any attempts by her at medical intervention, assistance, attempts at resuscitation, or phone calls to any medical provider.

The trial before Justice Jim Henry will resume on Tuesday morning.

The trial begins

A SEX worker charged with the unlawful killing of a 52-year-old Brisbane man has elected to represent herself at her manslaughter trial in Cairns.

Appearing before the Cairns Supreme Court on Monday morning, Madeleine Joan Lewin, 34, pleaded not guilty to unlawfully killing Anthony Brady on a date unknown between August 11 and August 15, 2020. Justice Jim Henry told the jury Ms Lewin’s decision to represent herself was a matter for her, and that “everyone has the right if they wish to represent themselves”.

“That’s her free choice to make,” he said. The morning session prior to the lunch break was spent with Justice Henry empanelling the jury, explaining to them the ins and outs of the trial, and the nature of the charge against Ms Lewin.

Footage of Anthony Brady, 52, at a Caltex service station on Sheridan St in Cairns.

Justice Henry told the jury: “It’s the duty of every person who except in the case of necessity undertakes to do any lawful act which is or may be dangerous to human life or health to have a reasonable skill and to use reasonable care in doing such act, the person is held to have caused the consequences which result to the life or health of any person by reason of any omission to observe or perform that duty”.

52-year-old Anthony Brady.

“So the prosecution as I understand this case … is basing its case, I understand, on an alleged failure to discharge this duty.

“So that she should be held, the prosecution alleges, liable for causing the consequences of the failure to live up to that duty, to exercise reasonable skill and use reasonable care.”

The Sunshine Tower Hotel on Sheridan Street, where the body of Brisbane man Anthony Brady, 52, was found. PICTURE: BRENDAN RADKE

Justice Henry said he understood that was in the context of a sex worker, “performing some kind of act … with the consent of a paying customer, but which the detail of the circumstances we’ll no doubt hear about culminated in the death of that customer”.

Crown prosecutor Nathan Crane is expected to make an opening statement later this afternoon.
The trial is scheduled to run into next week.

Originally published as Sex worker Madeleine Joan Lewin’s manslaughter trial over death of Anthony Michael Brady begins in Cairns Supreme Court