Convicted killer guilty of violently abusing boy in years before fatal attacks

A convicted killer who brutally murdered two women in the 1990s has been found guilty of violently sexually abusing a young boy in the years before his fatal attacks.

Alun Kyte lured the primary school-age child to his Staffordshire home with the promise of toys, before punching, choking, kicking and taunting the boy in a five-year campaign of abuse, starting in the late 1980s, during which he also raped his victim on at least two occasions.

At a trial at Nottingham Crown Court, jurors were told how Kyte gave the boy 50p after the first assault and threatened his family after each attack.

Giving evidence, the victim recalled how he was at times strangled until he became unconscious, and was so scared that Kyte would harm his family that he decided to “get it over and done with”.

Opening the trial earlier this month, Ben Lawrence, prosecuting, said: “This is a case in which the defendant violently sexually abused a young boy.”

Mr Lawrence said the abuse, spanning years, followed a pattern of increasing violence and, afterwards, threats against the victim and the victim’s friends and loved ones if they told anyone.

“That type of behaviour was repeated a number of times over the next few years,” said the prosecutor.

He added “The violence and threats used by Kyte would be an obvious explanation as to why his victim felt unable to tell anyone at the time.”

In his evidence, Kyte said that the events “never happened” and that the victim had never been inside his house, adding “he has got no reason to make these allegations” and that they were “made-up”.

During cross-examination, Kyte, 58, accepted he was capable of extreme violence but denied having harmed his victim.

However, jurors convicted him on all counts.

Kyte is currently serving a life sentence, with a minimum term of 25 years, for the murders of 20-year-old Samo Paull and 30-year-old Tracy Turner, two sex workers, in 1993 and 1994 respectively.

Ms Paull, a single mother, met Kyte in Balsall Heath, Birmingham and her body was found near to the M1 in Leicestershire, almost 40 miles away.

Ms Turner met Kyte at an M6 service station and her body was found about 50 miles away, near Lutterworth, Leicestershire.

He was also found guilty of a rape committed in Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, in 1997, with which he was charged prior to the murders and given a seven-year sentence.

Publication of Kyte’s name and his past was restricted during proceedings and the jurors were only given certain details about his past during the trial.

While being cross-examined, he accepted murdering Ms Turner by strangling her after she “pestered” him to finish a meal in a motorway service station, but continued to deny the murder of Ms Paull.

When asked by Mr Lawrence if he was still lying about whether he committed the offence, Kyte said: “It would be easier for me to take responsibility for the 1993 murder.

“In my prison life, it would take away hurdles, but because I did not do the murder in 1993, I can’t take responsibility.”

He also said he “just was not a nice person” in the 1990s, and struggled with a number of issues, including low self-esteem, after the breakdown of a long-term relationship.

He said: “I’d come out of a long-term relationship and I was hurt so I stopped getting in relationships and just had one-night stands.

“I was seeing women just as sexual objects rather than relationship material.”

The jury found Kyte guilty of four counts of indecency with a child, three of attempting to choke, two of indecent assault on a male, and two of buggery.

Judge Nirmal Shant KC told Kyte, currently an inmate at HMP Rye Hill, near Rugby, Warwickshire, that he will be sentenced on February 24.