Stripper says Jill Meagher's killer Adrian Bayley simulated strangling on her during club visits

Updated

A stripper who knew the Melbourne man who killed ABC employee Jill Meagher says he used to simulate strangling on her and told her he "wanted to choke women".

On Tuesday, Adrian Bayley faced a pre-sentencing hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court, where his lawyers said he accepted he should be given a life sentence for the murder of Ms Meagher last year.

At the hearing Justice Geoffrey Nettle lifted a suppression order, allowing details of Bayley's history of violent sex attacks to be revealed.

The 41-year-old Coburg man has been raping, abducting and threatening to kill women throughout his adult life.

His first rape victim was his sister's 16-year-old friend in 1990 when Bayley was just 18.

Later that year, he attempted to rape and threatened to kill a 17-year-old girl. Then, he abducted and attempted to rape a teenage hitchhiker.

In 2000 and 2001, Bayley struck again when he committed 16 rapes against five street prostitutes in Melbourne's St Kilda red light district.

He picked them off the street and drove them to a nearby laneway - parking so close to a wall that they could not open the door.

He was sentenced to eight years' jail for the rapes - less than half the maximum available - and was released in 2010.

In August 2011, while he was still on parole, Bayley assaulted a man in Geelong.

Six months later, the matter came before a magistrate, who sentenced him to another jail term, this time for three months. His parole, though, was not revoked.

After his release, Bayley took to visiting strippers.

He'd touched me and he had told me how he wanted to choke women... Sam, worker from Maxine's

One of his haunts was the strip club Maxine's in Sydney Road, Brunswick, not far from where Ms Meagher went missing last September.

A stripper who worked there told the ABC's 7.30 program she met Bayley on many occasions.

"He came in maybe once every other week or so for a couple of months and he would get a dance with me and a lot of the time he would be quite rough," said the woman, known by the alias Sam.

"He would touch my neck and he would talk about how he liked my neck or how he liked rough sex and things like that."

Sam says Bayley was simulating strangling on her and used to tell her "he wanted to choke women".

"It was quite threatening physically and I did have to ask him to leave the dance room early once or twice," she said.

The last time Sam danced for Bayley was a few weeks before Ms Meagher went missing.

When the photos of him were leaked when he was arrested I just, I recognised him immediately ... I had a panic attack, I threw up, I was kind of crying hysterically. Sam

When police revealed they had arrested Bayley, Sam panicked.

"When the photos of him were leaked when he was arrested I just, I recognised him immediately and I had this really physical reaction," she said.

"I had a panic attack, I threw up, I was kind of crying hysterically.

"The photos of Jill Meagher came out and I looked really similar to her and it kind of hit me that it could have been me.

"He'd touched me and he had told me how he wanted to choke women and things. It was really, really, very scary."

Sam still has waves of anxiety every time the names Jill Meagher or Adrian Bayley are in the news, but she had no idea how lucky she was until today being told of Bayley's history of raping sex workers.

"I didn't know that at all," Sam told 7.30.

Breaking into tears, she added: "That's really scary, oh my God. Because I think about as well how if it had been me the publicity wouldn't have been the same.

"There wouldn't have been 30,000 people walking down Sydney Road because of it. There wouldn't have been this massive uproar about it.

"And trying to find out who it was and trying to find her body and things because there is that attitude that she's just a stripper, she's just a sex worker, she's a slut it doesn't matter.

"I've thought about that a lot of times."

Bayley confessed to Meagher's murder

Sorry, this video has expired Video: CCTV vision of evidence leading up to disappearance of Jill Meagher (ABC News)

In the days between Ms Meagher's disappearance and Bayley's arrest, a wave of fear and sadness swept Melbourne.

About 30,000 people marched along Sydney Road, calling for women to be safe at night.

On the Monday morning of that week, Bayley had arrived at work with cuts on his nose.

He told his manager it was because he "got into a fight with some Lebo's in the city", but CCTV tracking his movements throughout the night showed no such fight.

During a police interview Bayley denied he had met Ms Meagher on the night of the murder, but CCTV footage showed otherwise.

In the footage pieced together of the night, after Ms Meagher left a pub where she'd been drinking with friends, she set out on her own, to walk the short distance home.

Bayley spotted her and started to follow her.

Police also had phone records showing both Bayley's and Ms Meagher's phones in Brunswick, and mobile towers tracked them all the way through Sunbury, to Gisborne South.

Bayley still maintained his innocence until police presented him with one more key piece of evidence.

Ms Meagher's broken sim card had been found by Bayley's girlfriend in their washing basket.

You know it wasn't really my intention to hurt her, you know that? Adrian Bayley to police

Bayley finally confessed.

"You know it wasn't really my intention to hurt her, you know that?" he told police.

"When we conversed, I swear to you man, I swear to you I'd - I just - I spoke to her and she looked distraught. Does that make sense?"

After his confession, Bayley led police to a remote site in Gisborne South, where Jill's body was found in a shallow bush grave.

Crown prosecutor Gavin Silbert SC told the court on Tuesday that it was only a matter of time before Bayley killed someone.

Ms Meagher's tearful father and husband told of how her death had left them broken men.

"It's just not OK to rape and murder my child," Ms Meagher's father George McKeon said today.

"There was a brutal end to her life ... something that will live with me for the rest of my life."

Mr Meagher said today he was now only "half a person because of this crime".

Map: Disappearance of Jill Meagher

Topics: murder-and-manslaughter, sexual-offences, courts-and-trials, law-crime-and-justice, crime, melbourne-3000, brunswick-3056, vic, australia

First posted