Jessie Wright murder trial - Teenager raped, strangled and 'thrown over a wall' by alleged killer Zakk Sacket

Published: 24 March 2011
by DAVID ST GEORGE

TEENAGER Jessie Wright kissed her gran goodnight and left home heading for her violent death, a jury heard this week. 

The hugely popular 16-year-old, known as “an Angel” to her close-knit family, was raped and strangled soon afterwards by a neighbour she playfully “mucked about with”, the Old Bailey was told.

Within two hours of having a late supper and leaving her nan’s flat,  Jessie, who attended Maria Fidelis Convent School in Somers Town, was left partly naked and dead in a secluded spot near the home of her alleged killer, Zakk Sacket, the prosecution said.

Jessie had been thrown over a wall and landed 15 feet below when she lay sprawled on the ground for hours until she was discovered the following afternoon by surveyors working in the area, said prosecutor Dorian Lovell- Pank, QC.

Unemployed Sacket, now 20, of Outram Place, York Way, Islington, close to King’s Cross Station, denies murdering Jessie at about 2am on March 4 last year. The case began on an unusual note when those in the packed public gallery were screened from Sacket’s view from the dock below. Judge Timothy Pontius explained that Sacket, defended by leading criminal QC Jeremy Dein, has learning difficulties and limited intelligence. He had to be treated as a “vulnerable defendant”, and should be made to feel more at ease with the court surroundings while away from the public’s direct gaze”, said the judge.

The prosecutor claimed Sacket killed Jessie with a ligature and a powerful grip as he raped her in a car park behind the flats he was living in.

Jessie lived not far away at Kinross House on the Bemerton estate, Caledonian Road. 

Just minutes after the murder, it was claimed, he rode away on his mountain bike and went to an all-night corner store in Caledonian Road where he sold her mobile phone for £15.