Despicable Andrew Innes spoke of of his love for “ultra feminine” women and visits to bondage clubs whilst describing how he beat Bennylyn Burke to death with a hammer. The 52-year-old killer spent hours in the witness box providing details of his sexual preferences whilst also telling jurors about how he killed Bennylyn.
Horrified members of Bennylyn’s family sat weeping in the public benches of the High Court in Edinburgh listening to callous Innes’ horrifying account of how he killed her. He claimed he suffered from “diminished responsibility” and was having “very crazy” thoughts at the time he murdered Bennylyn on Sunday February 21 2021.
In the weeks leading up to the killing, Innes had spent time trying to persuade an Aberdeen University student to become his sexual playmate. Innes say that Mrs Burke was standing at the sink of his home in Innes Avenue, Dundee in the moments before the assault.
He told jurors how Bennylyn from the back physically resembled his estranged Japanese wife with her long dark hair. Innes told the jury that he started thinking about how his marriage ended and the “hateful” behaviour of his partner who cut long her long dark hair, and dyed it blonde.
He also told the court of how at the time he was married to his wife, he was having an affair with another Japanese woman who he met at a ‘rope bondage club’. He told the court that this woman dumped him “in the most horrible way” by text message after she had agreed to move in with him.
Innes, a software engineer, told defence advocate Brian McConnachie KC: “These three women have similar physical similarities. The woman in front of me looked like my wife.”
He then said that from the neck down, Bennylyn looked like the woman he met at the bondage club. Innes told the court that he started thinking about the “hateful” things his wife had done to him during his marriage and that Bennylyn started resembling a “hybrid” of his partner and his former lover.
Telling the jury that he didn’t believe in “fairies, dragons and unicorns”, Innes said “I was apocalyptically angry. I started thinking about my wife and her hair. She would get it cut short and dyed brown. I really got annoyed with it. it was nasty. It was really hateful.
“I started to think to think about all of the spiteful stuff my wife did to me. I got angry. I got really angry. I have never got so angry before. There’s an expression about your blood boiling. There was a physical sensation.
“I started to think some very crazy things. I thought that the woman in front of me…. was some kind of hybrid.
“I became apocalyptically angry. I picked up the hammer and hit her over the back of the head.
“My memories are fragmented. I don’t remember all of it.
“I remember wrestling on the kitchen floor. I had a samurai sword in my office and I remember thinking ‘right, i will get my samurai sword’ so I went into my office and she started chasing me. I remember the blade going in once.
She was lying on the floor and I was just hitting her until she stopped moving.
“It was the weirdest thing. The kids were sitting watching cartoons - it was if they didn’t care.”
He had been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. He said he had graduated in Computing Science from Aberdeen University in 1992 and also had a Crohn’s Disease, a condition which attacks his immune system.
Innes told the court that the condition had caused him to be hospitalised and he had been given steroids to help stabilise his health. Innes also told the court that he preferred “ultra feminine” women with long black hair and that a woman from Thailand called Thailand was his “ideal partner”.
He said he had married a Japanese woman and had lived there with his children. But had returned to Scotland after he had been “compelled” to leave Japan.
Innes told the court that he had a difficult marriage to his wife, who he didn’t name.
She said that she threatened to leave him because she didn’t like living in Scotland. She said they had gone to live in California but after spending three years there, she issued with him with a “ransom letter” detailing her demands for her to stay together with him.
He said: “i spoiled her. She was not happy. She basically gave me a ransom letter. She said she wanted a car with six seats and holidays in Japan each year.
“She said that if I didn’t get her these things she would leave me and I would never see my daughter again. I bought her all these things.”
He said he got a job in Japan and once there met another woman in a rope bondage club. He started to have an affair with her and she agreed to move in with him. But the relationship ended.
He added: “She left me in the most horrible way. She agreed to marry me. She helped me look for some place to live in. She helped me with the paperwork.
“The day I moved into the apartment she dumped me by text for some other guy I hadn’t heard about before.”
He told the court that he met Bennylyn through a website called Filipino Cupid. He said he agreed to meet her in Bristol and she wanted to have a “cup of coffee” with him. He added: “I managed to upsell her to a picnic as I wasn’t driving all that way for just a cup of coffee.”
Innes also told the court that before driving away, he took two weekly dosages of his steroid medication. She and Jellica came to Scotland and stayed with him for a few days.
On the day he was due to drive her back to Bristol, Innes said he another two weekly dosages of his steroid medication and didn’t sleep on the night before he killed Bennylyn. Innes also told the court that before killing Bennylyn he bought a lump hammer from a nearby branch of B&Q.
He came home and saw Bennylyn making packed lunches for the drive home and he told the court he attacked her.
He said it was not a premeditated attack. He said he had a samurai sword in the house and other items that were more "appropriate" weapons.
He said: "There were so many items, if this was premediated in any way it would have been way cleaner." Innes was asked by Mr McConnachie why he had killed the mother and daughter and replied: "Because I was insane."
His counsel asked him as a result of what and he said: "As a result of steroids." He said that at the time of the killing of Bennylyn he had experienced anger and afterwards "kind of wandered about in a zombie state".
His counsel asked him when he killed Jellica. He initially told the court: "I have been unable to figure out exactly what day it happened." But later under cross examination from prosecutor Alex Prentice KC said he was leaning towards there being three days between the death of the mother and child.
Innes told the court it seemed "logical to me" that the girl should be put with her mum. The child had wanted to go to her mum.
He said: "They weren't buried in concrete. I dug them a respectable grave and I gave them a Christian burial service and I replaced the floor. That's all I did."
The prosecutor asked Innes if he was asking the jury to believe he was in some sort of trance or psychosis and he responded: "The medical term is steroid induced psychosis."
Innes was asked about why he purchased lube among other items from a Tesco store in Dundee and said he had been in communication with a student at Aberdeen University. He said: "We were in discussions about her becoming my playmate. My sexual playmate."
Innes told the court that he had been diagnosed as "hypersexual". He said that in prison he had tried to castrate himself with a cable tie but then alerted medical staff "and asked them to castrate me in a slightly more civilised manner”
Innes’ account of having diminished responsibility was thrown into doubt by consultant psychiatrist Dr Gordon Cowan,36. He met with Innes on eight different occasions following his arrest.
He told defence advocate Brian McConnachie KC that Innes had spoken about the circumstances of how Mrs Burke had died to himself and colleagues. He said that Innes’s account of what happened had changed.
Dr Cowan said: “He said he acted in self defence from attack. He then spoke of an internal monologue with a voice of kind of identity that was advising him to hurt the woman and he was saying ‘she’s done nothing wrong.
“It’s really difficult to know for sure the symptoms if any Mr Innes has at this time. It’s clear that he held resentment towards his ex partners and the lady in front of him reminded of these ladies and he became uncontrollably angry at her.”
The court heard that in a report he prepared Dr Cowan had come to the view that there were "no reasonable grounds for believing" that Innes has a mental disorder as defined in legislation of a nature or severity requiring treatment in hospital.
He also said that he was not of the view that Innes was unable by reason of mental disorder to appreciate the nature or wrongfulness of his conduct. The psychiatrist said that in his view there was no evidence to support acquittal due to mental disorder if he were found to have perpetrated the offences.
Dr Cowan said he also considered that a finding of diminished responsibility was not supported if he was found to have committed the offences. "I don't think there was a clear mental illness driving the behaviours," said the psychiatrist.
Innes was a step closer to being convicted of murdering Bennylyn and Jellica.
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