Rurik Jutting: Downfall of the psycho banker

RURIK JUTTING is accused of murdering two women in Hong Kong - we look at how this once angelic schoolboy fell from grace

Banker Rurik Jutting after arrest in Hong KongENTERPRISE

Banker Rurik Jutting stands accused of two counts of murder

On his final day at work Rurik Jutting cleared his desk and recorded a new voicemail message. 

Part of it read: “I am out of the office. Indefinitely. For urgent inquiries or indeed any inquiries please contact someone who is not an insane psychopath.”

Exactly what tipped the 29-year-old over the edge prompting him to quit his £350,000 banking job in Hong Kong has not yet been revealed. However it’s now clear that a once-promising life that began with a classic upper-middle-class upbringing and privileged education was out of control.

By the time Jutting walked into his favourite haunt in Hong Kong’s red light district a few days later and calmly ordered a pint of English bitter it’s believed prostitute Sumarti Ningsih was already lying dead in his £3,000-a-month flat.

The 25-year-old indonesian had been partially decapitated and her remains stuffed into a suitcase on the 31st-floor balcony.

Jutting is also accused of killing another call girl, seneng Mujiasih, 29, who was discovered barely alive when police arrived at the flat a week ago to find a bloodbath.

Photographs of Jutting being taken to court in handcuffs reveal a bloated, unkempt figure. Friends claim a hedonistic lifestyle of easy money, drugs, drink and sex took its toll on a once ultra-fit man who rowed for his college at Cambridge University and seemingly had the world at his fingertips.

Rurik and his brother Auryn grew up in the Surrey stockbroker belt. His parents are Graham, 53, an engineer, and Helen, 52, who runs a shop. Rurik attended Wallop Preparatory school in Weybridge where a class portrait taken when he was six shows an angelic little boy.

Family homes included a Grade ii listed property in Chertsey and a grand Victorian house in nearby Cobham. Jutting was later a pupil at Abberley hall school in Worcestershire and won a scholarship to £34,000-a-year Winchester College where he was a boarder.

Jutting is claimed to have become obsessed with having sex with two or three women and hosting drug-fuelled sex parties that lasted for days

He shone in both the classroom and on the sports field, also excel-ling at music. Jutting is remembered by teachers as a “quiet, respectful and well-mannered” pupil although some former classmates have hinted that he strug- gled to fit in and make friends.

One contemporary at Winchester says: “He had a sort of controlled poise and a certain understated smugness, a sort of superior air. He seemed quite detached. i’d never have described him as affable.”

Jutting went on to study law and history at Peterhouse College, Cambridge, where he was also a member of the lightweight rowing club and was a keen cross-country runner.

At university Jutting is said to have used the moniker “killer”, apparently a play on the reverse of his Christian name – Kirur. He’s also reported to have revelled in the nickname adopted by the rowers – Psychos – after the punishing training regimes they endured. A former tutor recalls: “He was a bit of an action man, always on the move.”

Jutting found time to be secretary of Cambridge University’s his- tory society, honorary members of which include philosopher Profes- sor Roger scruton and the historian Dr David starkey.

After graduating he decided on a career in elite banking, working first as a capital markets trader for Barclays in the City then joining Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s London office in 2010.

Jesse Lorena had a number of knife wounds to her body.REX

Jesse Lorena had was found with numerous knife wounds to her body

It was during this period that the previously studious Jutting developed a taste for the high life and became preoccupied with money.

He romanced a string of beautiful women in top restaurants, enjoyed skiing holidays in Courchevel in the French Alps and joined an exclusive private members’ club in trendy Shoreditch.

On social networking sites Jutting boasted about his cash-making prowess. Among the playboy’s many girlfriends was glamour model and aspiring actress Sonya Dyer, 29, also known as sonya Milkshake.

She has featured in a string of magazines in racy poses. in a photo-shoot she posed in a bikini while pouring banana milkshake over her cleavage. At one stage sonya moved in with Jutting in Wapping, East London.

Another significant relationship was with Goldman Sachs banker Sarah Butt, a privately educated former grammar school student who was a colleague at Barclays.

Miss Butt, 28, originally from Bury, was said to have been his fiancée two years ago but he was devastated when their engagement was called off after she reportedly kissed another man during a business trip abroad.

The couple were known for their extravagant spending habits but she has told friends there was nothing in his behaviour when they were together that caused alarm.

It’s thought Jutting’s heartbreak over the break-up prompted him to apply for a transfer overseas. in July last year he moved to Merrill Lynch’s Hong Kong office.

Sumarti Ningsih was also discovered in Jutting's flat ENTERPRISE NEWS

Sumarti Ningsih was also discovered in Jutting's flat

Jutting threw himself into an outrageous expat life-style, basing himself near the lively Wan Chai district which is packed with bars and is a notorious haunt for prostitutes. The area was made infamous by the 1960 film The World Of Suzie Wong, about a Chinese prostitute. Cocaine use is rife in many bars and clubs.

Soon he became a familiar figure in bars such as the Old China hand. One worker reveals that he was a heavy drinker who rarely left without racking up a bill of hundreds of pounds. “These bankers don’t care about money,” he says. “They just keep buying, buying, buying.”

Jutting would come to the pub wearing flip-flops and was prone to regular outbursts in which he would brag that he was a “psychopath”.

He surrounded himself with Asian women – “the wilder the better” according to one acquaintance. There were also several debauched trips to Angeles City in the Philippines, an area dubbed Sin City for its cheap booze and thriving sex industry. It’s within easy reach of hong Kong by budget airline.

During his time there Jutting is said to have fallen for 22-year-old Ariane Guarin, whose family says he showered her with gifts during a six-month relationship which ended acrimoniously about a month ago.

Jutting is claimed to have become obsessed with having sex with two or three women and hosting drug-fuelled sex parties that lasted for days. His binges left him aggressive and “like a zombie”, according to a former police official. Jutting is also said to have gambled hard, playing poker for high stakes.

He lost touch with friends in the UK but one who met Jutting about six months ago was shocked by the amount of weight he’d piled on.

Jutting’s private life became increasingly complex and his behaviour ever more erratic. He’s said to have become depressed and disenchanted with his handsomely paid but stressful job. Although his bulging wallet meant he was never short of hangers-on, he does not appear to have had any close friends in Hong Kong.

In the weeks leading up to the alleged murders it’s reported that Jutting was seen at various times with both victims, while there are rumours of wild parties at his flat, attended by groups of prostitutes.

Hours before her murder Seneng Mujiasih, who was wearing a leopard print jump suit, told friends she was going to a Halloween party adding: “I’m going to have fun.”

Both women had travelled from their homes in Indonesia to seek a better life and earn enough money to send back to their families, who have called for the death penalty for their killer.

It was Jutting who called police to the flat on November 1. As part of the investigation detectives in Hong Kong seized his mobile phone, which contained photographs and video clips of hundreds of women.

Police are trying to establish if any are missing and piecing together his movements since he arrived in Hong Kong.

During questioning the Briton is reported to have admitted that the women died at his flat but denied that he is either a murderer, or insane.

Jutting is being held in the Lai Chi Kok detention centre in Kowloon, which also houses Triad gangsters, killers and drug dealers.

Another strand of the investigation is focusing on why Jutting’s trading licence was revoked by finance regulators on the day the first victim died. One theory is that the collapse of his career may have been the final straw in a life that was unravelling.

It is just one of the many ques tions that must now be answered in order to discover why an angelic schoolboy from a loving family has had such a fall from grace.

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