www.dailymail.co.uk 4th August 2010
A City banker paid two escorts to help him commit suicide - in what one police source described as 'death by hooker'.
Married father-of-two Colin Birch, 44, hanged himself from a tree after convincing the the women that he was wearing a safety harness and that he was merely playing a sado-masochistic game.
Mr Birch, who had lost his job as an assistant vice president at Deutsche Bank , died on Dartford Heath, Kent, on Friday, July 30.
A police source said: 'The girls believe they were used to help kill him without realising what they were doing. It was death by hooker.'
Dartford Heath: The Kent park and wood where Colin Birch hanged himself.
Police have arrested two women and a man on suspicion of assisting suicide
Mr Birch hired the women, Marie Laurent and Alex Sturley, both 35, from Katie's Lovely Escorts agency in Bexley to meet him on the heath - where they found him standing on a wooden step with a noose around his neck.
The women say he was crying when they arrived, and that he wanted them to verbally abuse him, telling him he 'deserved to die'.
After being paid £60 each they said they left him, but then returned to find him swinging with his neck still in the noose.
Despite his assurances that he would be wearing a harness that would prevent him from choking, they noticed his lips had turned blue.
They say they immediately got him down and tried to revive him but it was too late.
Acoording to a police source, Mr Birch had used the escort agency before for similar role-playing sex games.
Website: Colin Birch had used Katie's Lovely Escorts agency before, and had contacted them to send two women to be his 'executioners'
The police source told The Sun newspaper: 'A couple of weeks before he died he had five or six weeks girls out in the woods and paid them to abusie him.
'The girls thought it was a bit of harmless fun and easy money. Then he contacted the agency again and sent a text saying he wanted a couple of girls to meet him up on Dartford Heath.
'He said in his text "I want them to pretend they are executioners who are going to kill me".
'He said he wanted them to abuse him by saying he was a useless waste of space who deserved to die.
'He said he would have a noose around his neck and would swing but promised that he would be wearing a harness.'
The source added that the women were adamant Mr Birch was still standing on the step when they left him - and thought it was merely a kinky fantasy.
Both have been arrested on suspicion of assisting suicide, as has 41-year-old cab driver David Bowyer, who drove the women to the scene. All have been bailed until August 27, pending police inquiries.
Birch's widow Sandra, 41, and their two teenage sons are said to be 'devastated'.
